Allen Mothershed Blog: Posts

Under the Shelter of His Wing

Allen Mothershed — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 14:32:05 GMT

Body:

Psalm 27, Luke 13:31-35

Jingles We Love to Hate

I wish I were an Oscar Mayer weiner. That is what I truly wish to be cause if I were an Oscar Mayer weiner everyone would be in love (oh, everyone would be in love, everyone would be in love) with me.

You know there are just some songs that get caught in your mind and you can’t get rid of them. That one goes all the way back to 1965 and I still cannot get it out of my mind. Sometimes I find a bit of devilish pleasure in being the annoying husband and I try to come up with jingles or bits of songs that really get stuck in Marla’s mind. I have found that “Itsy, Bitsy Spider” is especially annoying and effective with Marla. Then there is always, “The Candy Man Can.” That one is too annoying for me. Then there is everyone’s favorite annoying tune, (oh, I almost hate to do this to you) Disney’s “It’s a Small, Small World.”

There is another song but this one is not annoying to me. We shared it with you this morning. We sang it as a response to the Psalm 27: “The Lord is my light and my salvation whom shall I fear.” There is a history for me with that song. I took a small group of youth to build Habitat for Humanity houses down in the Mississippi Delta and one morning the project leader taught us that simple piece of musical reflection. It has stayed with me ever since. In fact, it has become a sort of a mantra for me. Do you know what a mantra is? It is a short line, usually from scripture that you repeat or sing over and over until it becomes part of you. Mantras can be very powerful because the more you pray one, the more it becomes an unconscious way of shaping our life into the truth of the words being sung.

This particular mantra comes to me when I am in a moment of fear or struggle and it calms me, guides me, refocuses and reassures me. The whole of psalm 27 is actually quite powerfully reassuring. One verse says, “For he will hide me in his shelter in the day of trouble; he will conceal me under the cover of his tent; he will set me high on a rock.” Later in the psalm there are these words of assurance, “If my father and mother forsake me, the LORD will take me up.” God, you see, is both as a mother and a father, loving and protective. The Psalmist is so confident in God’s love and protection in the face of his enemies that he ends his song with a commandment not only to himself but to any of us who struggle, “Wait for the LORD; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the LORD!”

Our gospel reading from Luke has this same theme of protectiveness and loving devotion, but with a note of deep sadness on the part of Jesus. Jesus is warned by some Pharisees that his life is in danger, that Herod, who Jesus calls a fox, the ruler over Galilee, is looking for an opportunity to kill him. Jesus says that he must quickly complete his ministry and go to Jerusalem, because that is the place where prophets are to be killed. In words, that are foreboding, Jesus knows his fate and the deadly path he must take. The very history of Israel continues in its tragic course: the very ones God sends to save us are killed and destroyed.

Then we have this sad lament on the part of Jesus, “Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!” You Can Hear Pain BUT also Abiding Love of Jesus. You can hear the pain and the disappointment in those words, but also the deep, abiding love of Jesus, whose will is to protect and to save the people of Israel. Jesus wants so very much to love and comfort his people - to pull them into himself and protect them from harm.

It is a very strong image when it comes to comfort. We know how deep our need and our desire for comfort goes. Just think about a time you have held a child who has been hurt or who is terrified. She snugs up close and she feels so reassured. She almost melts into you in comfort and relief. Who of us does not at times want to have that sort of holding and of being loved?

But I am wondering if that really enough? Is comfort enough? Do we perhaps prefer something more than comfort? When danger lurks, when we find ourselves afraid do we not find ourselves longing for something more protective and substantial than a hen hiding us under her wings?

As one writer puts it “When the foxes of this world start prowling really close to home, when you can hear them snuffling right outside the door, then it would be nice to have a little bigger defense budget for the hen house.”1 Comfort is fine as far as it goes, but a robust protection capable of overcoming any threat is what we really believe in.

Many years ago, I saw a very well done movie called “The Witness.” A young Amish boy and his mother travel to Philadelphia where the young boy witnesses a murder. A good cop named John Book is forced to go into hiding when he discovers that corrupt cops were in on the killing. He goes to hide in the Amish Country with the family of the young Amish boy.

While in hiding, John Book discovers the beauty and peacefulness of the simple way of life of the Amish people. But, of course, it is not too long before the corrupt cops come looking for John Book and the young Amish boy. You can feel the tension and the suspense in the climax of the film. You realize the boy and Book and the rest of the family are in grave danger. John Book is unarmed. The Amish are pacifist. You wonder how will these killers be stopped. I am cheering with the audience as John Book manages to kill one of the killers by smothering him in a corn silo and then he uses the dead cop's shotgun to kill another. That is just reality. That is how you handle violence.

But the scene is not over. There is another rogue cop and John Book is out of ammunition. He does the only thing he can do, he rings the farm bell, alerting his neighbors to the problem and they come running. The other rogue policeman knows that he cannot kill them all and he surrenders.

There is no doubt of what I thought had to be done. I was relieved to see John Book take action even if it meant using a sword to stop a sword. But the movie does not let us off the hook. When the crowd of Amish show up, we also see the very real power of peaceful people standing against evil. It makes you wonder, if maybe, just maybe, the Amish have a way that also has its own power and truth.

Jesus is clearly on the side of the Amish way of protection. When a fox threatens a hen about all the hen can do is hide her chick under her wing. The only other option is for the hen to fluff up her breast and stand between the fox and her chicks and hope the fox will be satisfied with killing only her. This is what Jesus does.

When Herod comes after Jesus, when the foxes of this world seek Jesus out, Jesus has no gun with which to stop them, no weapon with which to defend himself and his followers. It is a bit unsettling. When Peter pulls his sword in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus tells him to put it away, “Those who live by the sword will die by the sword.” When Pilate ask him about his kingdom, Jesus simply says, “My kingdom is not of this world, if it were, my followers would rise up and fight.”

The way of Jesus’ protection is very different. It would seem to be a weak response, the way of defeat and loss to the foxes of our world. But is it?

It depends on your faith as to who in the end won, the hen or the fox? On the one hand, there are feathers and blood all over the place and chickens running for cover. But on the other hand, as time goes on, it become clear what Jesus, the hen, had done. He refused to run from the fox and he also refused to become one of the foxes. He finds his victory in death, because he believes that there is something much stronger than death at work in himself.

We have been trying to figure it out ever since haven’t we? How do you live in a world filled with foxes? How do we find safety and protection? There are not easy answers. Christians have and do respond in many ways. But still Jesus calls us to consider a different way. It is NOT what we expect - it is an uneasy way. But he tells us that on this way, love is more powerful than death or anything the world can do to us.

I wonder sometimes when I think about Jesus on that road to the cross. As he was praying in the Garden of Gethsemene, as he was betrayed, arrested, abandoned, interrogated, mocked, scourged, hung on a tree to die, what did Jesus say to himself to get him through that time? Perhaps he said, “The Lord is my life and my salvation, whom shall I fear.”

Published: 3/2/2010 6:48 PM

The Spirit Is Leading Us into the Wilderness - Luke 4:1-15

Allen Mothershed — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 15:46:30 GMT

Body:

How many of you have ever watched a reality television program? Most of us have. If you like reality based television programing you are going to connect with the gospel reading we have this morning. Jesus is in the spot light and we are about to discover the stuff he is made of. The show’s host is the devil himself and he is not about to let Jesus off the hook easily. Jesus is run through a series of three different tests. This is an extreme reality show: for forty days Jesus fasted and lived in the desert in isolation.

It is very clear from the reading that the devil is well prepared for his part. He has studied up very well on the scriptures he needs and can quote them freely. Jesus knows the scriptures also, but even more importantly, Jesus knows what the scriptures tell him to do. The devil tempts him with three things; bread, power, and protection. And Jesus says “no” to the bread, “no” to the power, “no” to the protection. Jesus maintains his focus . . . Under the most brutal of situations, Jesus continues to focus on worshipping and trusting God.

It is important to notice where this story took place. It happened in the wilderness. The wilderness is a desolate, hot, abandoned place, but it has come, through the ages, to stand for those times in our lives that are emotionally and spiritually desolate and painful and isolated and confusing. We have all been there in the wilderness - and if you have not - I warn you that you will one day go there.

The wilderness may be sitting at the darkly lit kitchen table late at night staring at a bundle of overdue bills and notices that sinks your heart in despair.

It may be dingy, old hotel room and a hard bed when you have left your house after a fight with your spouse.

It may even be a vague but constant sense of dissatisfaction with your life even when on the face of it you have everything you said you ever wanted.

It may be an empty house once filled with noisy teenagers and chaos you thought you couldn’t wait to be rid of until you are left looking at a spouse you no longer know so well.

It can be the quiet house on a long day weeks after the relatives have gone home and the casserole dishes have been picked up and the thank you letters have been completed and pain of loss finally sinks in.

The wilderness is that isolated place where you find yourself caught in between what has been your life and the confusion of what is yet to be your life. It is often a place where we powerless to do anything but wait. What used to sustain you is not there. Even God does not seem to be there. It is the same place where the Hebrew people found themselves when they were caught between bondage in Egypt and the Promised Land - wandering for 40 years somewhere between curse and blessing.

The impulse you have when you are in the wilderness is that you just want to get the heck out of there as fast as you can and as easily as you can. “Someone tell me what to do.” “Give me a pill or something.” So many addictions (like nervous eating, watching too much TV, video games, over-spending, obsessive gambling, alcoholism) are nothing but running away from a place of wilderness. Addictions are our little gods which we find easier to worship rather than wait for the true God who is truly capable of nourishing our soul.

We do not value wilderness experiences in our culture very much and we don’t make allowances for the way they have of interrupting our lives. I remembering being at the home of a prominent family after the father in the family -- a successful middle aged dentist had committed suicide. I was surprised that the sink was iced down with beer and there was dozens of bottles of booze opened on the bar. Everyone was drinking. A doctor, a friend of the family handed the wife an anxiety medication and said, “Take this. It will take you out of your pain.” At the funeral, only scripture was read. Not one word was spoken about the life of the one who had taken his own life. The message was so utterly clear: Don’t feel the pain. Move on. Let this go NOW.

This tragic, truly tragic event this past week of that angry bitter man crashing his airplane into the IRS building and before that, setting his own house on fire with his family in it, was so painful to watch. But the real pain is that I know and you know, it will happen again. We are a very violent society - with too many angry, bitter people walking around. Of course I do not pretend to have any idea as to what made this man to commit such a crime. But this I do know: We make so little allowance for people to constructively grieve and work through the darker emotions of their lives. When you bury everything, things explode in unpredictable ways.

Jesus would teach us a different path. What is remarkable about the story of Jesus’ temptation is that it was a chosen event!!! The Spirit lead Jesus into the wilderness to confront his demons. Jesus, before beginning his public ministry, willingly followed. When he is given the easy way out, he turns it down. Jesus was not tempted to do evil things. He was tempted with good things, with bread, the power to achieve something, protection from harm. But they were not true things, because they were not from God. In the moments when God seemed absent, Jesus remained true and then in the right time the angels came and ministered to him. This is how Jesus began his ministry - it was the intentional preparation of his soul. Out of that work he will ministry and heal and proclaim good news.

I want to share something with you that is from my own journey that I hope will help you think about your own life’s call and work. I shared a bit before about going through a divorce in the last church I served in MIssissippi. It was emotionally devastating, the most difficult challenge of my life. I did not focus on it much, at the time, but it was more humiliating than I then let myself know. On the one hand, the church I was serving could not have been more loving, forgiving, and accepting. They valued my ministry and me as their associate pastor.

But on the other hand, the temptation was for them and for me to just try to move on and act like nothing had ever happened. It was just so awkward for everyone. We did not talk about it. A letter went out to the church explaining what had happened and that was the end of it. One of the leaders of the church said to me, two months later, “well you are over this now, you can get on with your life.” Over it? How do you just get over it and move on?

Of course, that is what I did for a time, trying just to rise above it all and move on. Grief has a way of catching up with us. And about a year later, I was about to go crazy inside. Finally, I reached out for help with a spiritual guide. He would listen to all my gibberish and just sit there quietly until his silence forced me to begin to face that WILDERNESS SPACE DEEP WITHiN. It was in the pain that I found the healing; it was in the pain that I found God with me and the angels of God ministering to me.

It is unfortunate, that the United Methodist church did not have at the time a sabbatical policy that allowed for pastors to take some time within an appointment. You had to leave the church you served and then take the time on your own and that is what I did. I took a sabbatical year to heal and listen more intentionally to how God was leading me. I am here - now - because of that time. What I have to offer you as a pastor comes out of that challenging time and working through of a wilderness experience. Without it, you would not get so much from me.

It was the same for Jesus and it is the same for you. Jesus began his ministry by going inward, by choosing an intentional time of leave - of going into the wilderness and facing that which within himself will make him or break him in his ministry. There is soul work - that each person needs to do. Doing that work empowers your spiritual life and your ability to heal and love others. Without it, you have little to offer.

So we are in the season of Lent. It is a much more somber time. The music, some tell me, can sound more like a dirge. There are awkward moments of silence in our worship now. We speak of death and loss. We talk about sacrifice, giving things up for Lent. Some will stay away from worship now and wait for a more joyful Easter sound. Others will grudgingly go along wishing for something more uplifting.

But the church in its wisdom, in its oldest traditions, recognizes that this is just what we sometimes need and the spiritual journey requires. The Spirit is leading us now, like it lead Jesus, into a time of wilderness. Let us let go all that takes us from God and open ourselves for all that will bring us to God. Let us do what it takes to face and contend with the demons in our lives - that God may live more completely in us and that our Easter joy this year will be genuine.

Published: 2/24/2010 6:27 PM

Follow the Star

Allen Mothershed — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 23:03:25 GMT

Body:

Every year, during the Christmas season most of us have an event that happens in our homes. We go down in the basement or up in the attic and dust off that box that says, Christmas decorations. Perhaps it now feels like a chore or maybe this is one of the joyful highlights of the season, but for almost all of us it is a nostalgic experience, flooding our hearts and minds of Christmases past.

When I was a teenager, I would go up in the attic and find the cardboard box that contained my family’s Christmas treasures, carefully climb up down the attic ladder and excitedly bring out the container of memories. While my dad fussed with untangling the Christmas lights and figuring out which lamp was causing the string not to light up, my brother and sister and I would reach in that box and each pull out one of the three little elves that had our names written on them and place them on the tree.

Now the very bottom of that box, there was a large wooden box - that only my mom would pull out. It was very finely crafted porcelain manger scene - each detailed with careful precision and painted with royal colors. Along with those figurines was a stable constructed with small pieces of rough sticks and tiny bits of hay.

I remember that manger scene because of the way in which is was to be handled. Only my mother was to touch it and only my mother’s particular way of organizing the figurines could be trusted. This has always stood out for me because my parents were not particularly restrictive parents when it came to not letting us touch breakable items in the house - but that manger scene was the exception. It had a sacred quality to it. When she held the manger and the little Jesus baby in her hands, it was as if she was holding the little Lord Jesus. She placed them out so carefully, so precisely, and always in order of each characters appearance in the story. So the wise men came last - holding their gifts of frankincense, gold, and myrrh.

For my mother, for my family, there was something sacred about that manger scene. Those beautiful but ordinary objects pointed us to what was truly valuable and important in life. Put those objects under the heel of your foot and you could crush them. If the house were to burn down, they would be gone. But for us they provided meaning for our family, a reminder of the deeper meanings and values of our faith. As something sacred, they pointed beyond themselves to a faith that is more real, more valuable than any object on this earth. That is what the sacred does: it reorientates us to who and what we are about.

I believe that we have lost that sense of the sacred. One Saturday morning, a pastor friend of mine was down at the church and a few of the men were cleaning up and doing some repairs in the sanctuary. They had worked hard most of the morning when the pastor went to get a drink of water. When he came back in the sanctuary, there were four of the men gathered around the communion table where they had pulled up some chairs and were playing a game of cards. They were not gambling, they were just playing cards. But there on the table that for a hundred years people had come to receive the sacrament of Holy Communion they were playing cards. And written below, the words, “In Remembrance of Me.” Do you get what I mean? Is there nothing sacred?”

A car full of young people was driving down the road and they get stuck behind a funeral procession. There was the hearse in front, followed by the cars with the family of the deceased, and all the cars of other relatives and friends in support. The young driver grew impatient - so impatient that he blared on his horn and continued to do so as he passed the entire funeral procession and cut back in front of it. But there is some justice in this world. A police car witnessed this and pulled over the car and gave the driver a ticket and a lecture. But the father of that young driver contested the ticket on behalf of his son, because, as he put it, “there is no law against what he did.” But is there nothing sacred?

Walk over to the manger scene, take a look at the figurines of the wise men. Now go beyond all the cultural images and ideas that have romanticized this story over the years and hear again what this powerful tale, this sacred tale has to tell us. At the very heart of the story - what we have are wise people on a search, on a journey. There is so much about these people we do not know. Tradition has it that there were three of them, because of the three gifts - but we do not know if there were really three or even if they were all men. We are not sure exactly where they came from, only that they were from the Far East and that they were people of another religion who studied astrology.

What we do know is this: They were searching for something and they were willing to go on a long and challenging journey away from home to find it. It was a search for something sacred in their lives. They wanted to find that which would be worthy of giving meaning to everything else in their lives. They were willing to follow the star that was given them to take them to this new place in their lives.

Don’t get caught up in the speculation about where we can find astronomical evidence of the convergence of the planets at the time of Jesus’ birth. You will miss the deeper meaning of the story. The star is the gift of grace that God gives us to guide us to Christ and the way of Christ. For those who hunger after the sacred, that star will be found - even if you are from a different religion or culture or someone who feels lost and has many questions.

As these wise people reveal to us, the only thing that matters is that we listen to the hunger in our hearts for something sacred, for something that will leave us in awe and wonder, that we can bow down on our knees and worship. And then the only thing that matters is that we be willing to receive the grace given to us and be willing to take a journey where God’s grace will take us.

Every single one of you have this hunger inside of you. Every single person longs to know that there is something in this world that will give their life meaning and purpose and importance beyond the ordinary distractions of this life. Every single one of us wants to know that there is something or someone that will help us to understand the place and the importance of everything else in our lives. We all want to understand how I am to be in relationship to those close to us and to the stranger as well. We all want to understand what the meaning of our work is - why I toil and give myself each day.

This is what Christ does for us. This child - this Emanuel - God with us - is the sacred - the journey end in our discovery of him. In Christ, the sacredness of everything else is revealed. The true beauty of this created world is revealed to us. We come to a deeper valuing of our relationships, the creation, and the gift of our own life.

But now there is the danger that we will bow down and worship that which is not worthy of our worship. We see this in the other important character in this story and that is King Herod. In Herod the search never went beyond his own little life. For Herod, there is nothing is sacred. We know this because anyone who could order the murder of innocent, young children could possibly have any sense of the sacred left in them. All that matters for Herod is...Herod: his desires, his will, his power. When you bow down and worship power, everything else is judged as either enhancing that power or as a threat. Herod is for us an illustration of what it means to be so completely lost that we make ourselves the absolute center of this world and expect everything and everyone to revolve around us.

The last time I went on pilgrimage to Assisi, Italy, we journeyed outside of Assisi, up in the mountains and hiked up to a remote chapel in the woods. The chapel was built on a legend. About a 1000 years ago, thieves broke into a poor town church just down the mountain from where the chapel now is. Those thieves made profane the tiny chapel that was the center of faith for the towns people. And they took the Ciborium, which is the container that holds the reserve communion bread that has been consecrated into the body and the blood of Christ. In that poor town, in that small church, the solid gold, ciborium was the single most valuable object in the town. It held the body of Christ and was a focal point through which the people were reminded of the love and grace of Christ.

Frantically, they sent a search party after the thieves to recover what was stolen. Up on the mountain, where the chapel now stands, they discovered the consecrated communion bread. The thieves had discarded it as some unimportant object and went off with the Ciborium. When the search party found the Ciborium the search ended. For as important as the Ciborium was as a sacred object in their worship, the host, the body of Christ they knew was that which gave life and meaning to the people.

On that spot where the host was found, an ever flowing stream began to flow and on that spot of life-giving water the chapel was constructed. It is to that holy place that people today make a journey to discover there the presence of Christ in their lives.

I do not know the particular path you are on. Each of us has our own journey to make. Listen to the hunger in your heart for the sacred. Look in your lives for the star of grace God will provide you and follow that star.

Where will it lead you? This morning it will lead to this place where “This is my body which is given for you” and “This is the blood of the new covenant shed for you.” Let us prepare with expectant hearts to receive the gifts of the Christ child.

Published: 1/6/2010 9:10 PM

And a Child Shall Lead Us

Allen Mothershed — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 22:42:24 GMT

Body:

Luke 2:1-20

Many years ago, I attended church at a friend’s place of worship. The pastor in that church was a slight man, but with a booming voice. He held in his hands a large black Bible which he referred to numerous times through out his sermon. His hands at times would hammer the pulpit and his voice raise to drive his point home. He spoke of sin and sinners and judgment.

I doubt there was very much if anything that he said that I did not agree with. But the more I listened to him, the more he seemed to be just so, so very angry. His words did not seem to me to come from a place of love but out of fear. As his voice grew louder and louder, I had the feeling he was desperately attempting to convince us of something he secretly feared no one would believe, including himself.

A funny thing happened in that service. There was a young mother in worship and she had a baby that she held in her arms. The baby's eyes were the brightest blue eyes and in that brightly lit church, those eyes just glistened. The mother held that beautiful child and it cooed and smiled and laughed.

Soon the pastor’s words were all in the background, as I found myself enchanted with that little baby, drawn in to the playfulness, the innocence, the joy of that loving child who also could have cared less about the angry sounds coming from the pulpit. I looked up and realized that everyone in sight and sound of that child was, like me, no longer listening to the preacher, our hearts melting by the vulnerability of that child.

How does God come to us? How does God seek us out? Is it with anger and fear and threat? Or does God come to us and draw us in like that child - open and exposed, joyful and playful, wooing us into relationship?

As we read again the Christmas story, there is one eye catching facet in the way Luke, the gospel writer, paints this story for us: the humbleness of Jesus’s birth. It is so intricately and beautifully painted on the canvass of Luke’s version of the story. There is Mary, the young girl, who was engaged but unmarried when she learned of her pregnancy - so very exposed in her culture to condemnation. And yet, she trusts the word of the angel and receives with joy God blessing her life.

There is Joseph, who despite the humiliation, believes the word of the Lord, takes Mary into his life and in his heart.

Both of them together, forced to travel in the later days of her pregnancy, by a remote Roman imperial government, who has no regard for the poor citizen of their kingdom. Mary and Joseph are simply pawns to be moved around by the whims of indifferent rulers.

There are the shepherds - the first to hear the good news of the birth, but the last in their culture in terms of their value and esteem. The later words of Jesus that the “last will be first” are literally fulfilled in their coming to the manger.

There is the dirty, grimy stable and manger, filled with animals and the smell of animals and musty wet straw. Humility is everywhere to be seen in this story. Luke wants us to know, that in this birth, God has acted, but not as anyone would have expected. The fortunes of all are already being reversed.

Then there is the baby Jesus. In so many of the ancient paintings of the nativity, Jesus even as a baby is already specially endowed with a knowing wisdom and with the light of a halo around his newborn head. It is not that the painters have gotten the picture wrong. They paint not history but their faith in the uniqueness of this child and his importance in our lives. But what is remarkable about the story itself is that it is through an ordinary baby in which God comes to bring us salvation. Jesus comes as a common baby, one like the babies born everyday into families.

So step in the Maternity ward, the nursery in the hospital. Look at all those tiny babies, with their itty-bitty fingers, swaddled in warm blankets. You are standing at that window trying to figure out which one is your family’s baby. You struggle to see an identification bracelet, but it is twisted around. And there is this gorgeous baby. Yes, yes, that has got to be her. The nurse see you standing out there, recognizes your face, picks her up and next thing you know you are holding that little child, that bundle of joy in your arms and your heart is just melting with awe and love.1

In that moment - what has gone on in your life before - really does not matter. The future is not your concern in those minutes in time. Your present circumstances outside that ward - do not matter at all. Your heart, your mind, your life has been opened, laid bare by the joy of that little child.

That is how God comes to us - that is how God seeks us out. In such beautiful vulnerability of the baby Jesus, God finds a path to our hearts. What we have done and what we have left undone - has been forgiven. In whatever challenge we face in our life - God is with us. Be we happy or depressed, fearful or excited, relaxed or angry, because of this child - we are now simply beloved. God’s love now has entered into our hearts and a new possibility for life has been born in us.

Right now, this evening is God’s invitation to you to let go. Allow the anger and the fear and guilt to melt away. Let down our guard, if just for a while, to feel love again. Let go our preoccupations with getting it all right, of being perfect. Let go of the mind game of attempting to figure God out. Let go our fears about God or ourselves or about other people. Let go our resentments and hardships. Just for this precious, wonderful moment, allow ourselves to forget all that and be drawn lovingly into the beauty of this God who comes to us as a child.

And when we allow ourselves to be so touched - the Christ is not only born into our world - he has been born into our hearts.

Let us pray. In the magic of this moment - open each of our hearts, Loving God, that your love for us may be born. Before you we bow in awe and amazement. Amen.

1 Fred Craddock, “Have You Every Heard John Preach?,” A Chorus of Witnesses, Thomas Long, Cornelius Plantinga, p43

Published: 1/6/2010 8:52 PM

Meeting the Truth

Allen Mothershed — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 22:29:39 GMT

Body:

I have a friend who many years ago had an opportunity to go to the White House and meet the President of the United States. Now do you have any idea what it is like to get ready to go meet the President of the United States? What in the world are you going to wear? If you think deciding what to wear to a party at a friends house, is sometimes a challenge... She tried on a pretty red dress. No, don’ t want to appear provocative or flirty. Then dressy pants, heels, and a beautiful blouse that is conservative but stylish. No, maybe not right for a cocktail party at the White House.

About 5 outfits later, she decides on a practical but attractive business dress with the added flare of some nice jewelry that stands out.

Just before she goes, she is just a tangle of excitement and nerves. “Oh", she says, "what in the world am I suppose to say when I shake his hand and meet him?”

Our gospel reading introduces us to seven of the most powerful and influential men in the ancient world. Tiberius, the step son of Caesar Augustus, emperor of all the ancient world. Pontius Pilate, governor of Judea. Herod ruler of Galilee. And then the high priest. The most powerful Jewish men in the ancient world. Men of both religious and political power.

We are introduced to these very intimidating men and then another name is added to the list. “In that time the word of God came to John the son of Zechariah.”

In case you missed the incongruence, let me paraphrase this in modern terms: “In the fourth year of the presidency of Barak Obama, when Pat Quinn was governor of Illinois, and Billy and Franklin Graham were high priests of the nation...in Sherrard, Illinois, there was this guy named John, the son of a small town minister....”

John would hardly seem appropriate to be mentioned in this list of commanding people. In this list of formidable dignitaries, along comes the name of a man who is dressed in animal skins, whose head and beard had never been shaven. We are told that the word of the Lord comes to be with John. It did not come to Pilate, not Herod, not Caiaphas - but John.

Who do you suppose you might find it most intimidating to meet? Tiberius - arguably the most powerful man in the world at that time. Pontius Pilate - a man known to be unusually cruel and unpredictable. Caiaphas and Antipas - imposing religious leaders in commanding positions of power.

I think it would be John who would have been the most intimidating. For one thing his appearance would have been imposing and scary. He wore animal skins and he had never shaven his beard or his head. If you came upon him walking down a city street, you might move to the sidewalk on the other side of the street. Then there were his words, “You brood of vipers...even now the ax is laid to the root of the tree.” I wonder how many of you would show up week after week if I used such words in my sermons directed at you?

But more than his dress and more than his words, there was something more intimidating about meeting John. What would be intimidating about John was that he puts you in the presence of God.1 As the scripture says, “The Word of God came to John.” In John and the word he has for us, we find God. You get close to John and the light of God starts to shine on you. That is what every person wants . . . to be in God’s presence and it is what every person does not want.2

Out in the wilderness, out of a burning bush, God calls to Moses, “Moses, come here!” Moses turns to God. “Come here, but don’t come any closer and take your shoes off.” To come to God is to come to a moment of truth; it is to come to a decisive, turning point in our lives. To come before God is to have the light of God’s truth shone on us. We are seen for who we really are.

In 1983, I took a class on “Preaching the Parables" from Professor Ted Hackett. Brilliant man, Episcopal priest, analytical psychotherapist, articulate preacher. I on the other hand was shy, insecure about my writing and my neophyte attempts at preaching the word. Right as class is about to start, he puts his hand on my shoulder, reaches down and whispers, “After class, may I have a word with you?”

Well, I do not know. I am not sure I am ready for this. What’s the word going to be? What did I do? My mind races with the possibilities. Is it my terrible writing? Did I fail to give credit for a quote? Am I going to flunk the class? I am just as nervous as a jello on a tractor. My stomach twisted like rope candy.

Class mercifully ends and he comes over to me. Hands me my paper and says, “Your scholarship on the scripture was exceptional, excellent work.” Who doesn’t want that? But . . . maybe not.

“May I have a word with you?” The doctor comes to the family room just outside the emergency room where the wife is anxiously waiting news about her husband brought in by the ambulance. What is the word going to be?

The boss calls you into the office and says, “May I have a word with you?” Not so sure are we?

A senior in high school opens up a letter from admission at the college she so desperately wants to attend. What is the word going to be?

There is that moment of truth. A moment that changes everything. Meeting God is like that. “Come Lord Jesus,” we pray in Advent, but are we really ready? Jesus says, “Everything that is hidden will be found out, and every secret will be known.” In the words of Jack Nicholson, “You can’t handle the truth” . . . or can we?

But God knows the thoughts of our hearts. As the ancient prayer goes, “Almighty God, to you all hearts are open, all desires known, and from you no secrets are hid.” Or we pray the ancient Hebrew Psalm, “whether shall I flee from thy spirit, if I make my bed in Sheol, thou art there...”

Before God there are no excuses. No more excuses. What is true becomes known. No more hiding, shifting blame, or denying. The cosmetics have washed off. The mirror is clear as life. The fog has lifted and it’s as bright as a summer day. We are known and seen for who we are.

John comes shouting in the wilderness and it is a moment of truth. Painful perhaps - but good news! “Repent and confess your sins!” And people came - by the droves they came and repented and confessed their sins. And they were forgiven. They were forgiven. What does forgiveness mean? It means a new beginning, a new creation.3

In a sermon, Fred Craddock gives an image of new creation and new beginning. He said, “picture a child, a third grader, trying to do arithmetic in a hurry; the bell is about to ring, the teacher is fussing, ‘children hurry,’ try to erase a mistake, the paper tears, make a black smear, start to cry, teacher comes by, ‘Oh, my goodness!‘ She slides a new sheet of paper there and says, ‘why don’t you just start over.” That is forgiveness; a new beginning. That is what John preached.4

She went through a divorce she desperately wanted to avoid. On December 31 it is final - the marriage is over - the illusions are gone. She knows her guilt and her failure and her pain. That New Year’s eve night she goes into a deep, long sleep and wakes up on New Year’s day in the morning, opens her window curtains, and get this...what was brown, dead grass is now a thick, beautiful blanket of pure white snow. The leafless winter trees are just glistening in the bright winter sunlight of a perfectly blue sky. That is forgiveness, that is new birth.

He comes into worship, his heart heavy with what he knows he has done and what he knows he has failed to do. He joins in with the congregation in the prayer of confession: ALMIGHTY and most merciful Father; we have erred, and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep. We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts. We have offended against thy holy laws. We have left undone those things which we ought to have done; And we have done those things which we ought not to have done; And there is no health in us.

And then he hears the words of assurance: “In the Name of Jesus Christ, YOU are forgiven.” He repeats them back, “In the name of Jesus Christ, you are forgiven.” He takes a piece of bread...not a small piece but a BIG piece because he knows his need is great. He drinks the cup. What taste like grape juice in the mouth goes down like a long nourishing drink of peace.

This is what John gets us ready for. This is what John prepares us for. If you want to make your way to Bethlehem...If you want to receive the gifts of God’s new birth, then take the time, stop and meet John and listen to what he has to say. Yes, I know, you are not sure you are ready for this. But if you do not meet John, you will miss Jesus in Bethlehem.5

1Fred Craddock, Have You Ever Heard John Preach?, A Chorus of Witnesses, Thomas Long & Cornelius Plantinga, p. 43

2 Ibid.

3 Ibid.

4 Ibid.

5 Ibid.

Published: 1/6/2010 8:29 PM

Our Place in the Universe

Allen Mothershed — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 22:12:24 GMT

Body:

I invite you to take an imaginative journey with me. Imagine, if you will, a movie camera that is focused now on you. It sees you sitting here in this sanctuary. The camera lens now extends outward to include those sitting around you - your family and friends and fellow church members. It goes upward and pulls back and from above we see the places that we live and work. Still further, and we see the Quad Cities in focus. But it does not stop there. This camera extends into space and we see our country. Then it goes 50,000 miles out and there is our world, the creation in all its stunning glory. From out there we are no longer seen, but we are there - a part of that global view. The view from 50,000 miles gives us a new feeling for our common humanity. Geographic boundaries and ancient rivalry seem petty. We then can see that we are a small blue ball floating in space with 6 billion people on board. We are in this together, all God’s children, one world, one people.

This is a true perspective. You could see this if you had the ability to raise yourself above the earth. We have not had this perspective very long - only since we landed on the moon. Some people think it has had a fundamental impact on our consciousness as world. But we do not think of life from this perspective much and even with it, our day to day focus remains very much on what we can manage to see with our own two eyes.

Now there are at least two possibilities when you see the world from so far out. One is that you can notice that you are no longer visually in the picture and find yourself lost in despair. You can feel you no longer matter that much. You may think that in the larger scheme, your life is a speck of unimportance, a temporary flake of enlivened dust - here today and gone tomorrow.

This is the way many people live. They do not realize their significance. Sometimes they say, “Well if this is the way life is, then I might as well just worry about myself only.” The ancient saying says it all, “Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow I die.” This is a real temptation, even for those of us who believe that God has called us to something more.

But there is another way of looking at yourself: you are a part of something much larger than yourself. Your life does matter because it is connected to the whole. Rather than lose yourself in the vastness of it all, you begin to see you have a particular place and role to play. It may not seem like much sometimes, but regardless, those around you are more connected to you than you know, you make more difference than you know. How many of you have seen the movie, “It Is a Wonderful Life?” Why is it that the little movie continues to have such a dedicated following? Every year so many, like myself, find a way to see that movie because it reminds us that our lives are deeply connected and have a hidden valley we may never be aware of. In the movie, a man is about to kill himself, but his guarding angel comes to the rescue and helps him to see that his life has had a profound, far reaching impact on others, far beyond what he or anyone would have imagined. We really never know how much we matter. It is more than we imagine.

When God looks at the world, God sees the whole of creation. God looks on this little blue ball in space and has a deep abiding love. God created it all and cares for it all. As John’s gospel says, “God so loved the world, that God sent his only son.” God loves the whole of it. When the Bible talks about salvation, it does not just talk of salvation of the individual soul, but of the creation. Jesus reconciles the world to himself. He brings a New Creation. God is concerned with saving that which in the beginning God declared as “very good.”

But God also looks out and sees the particulars. God sees you and God sees me. Jesus says, “But even the hairs of your head are all counted. Do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.” You have a place in the whole and that place matters. The question is: what do we do within that space we occupy?

Marianne Williamson talks about our interconnection when she says, Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, “Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?” Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightening about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.

I have read the story of John the Baptist many times and preached it often, but this time when I read it, I realized that it has something to tell us about how important each of our actions are. At the very heart of John’s message is the idea that how we live, the actions we take are enormously important to everybody else.

John said that the Christ is coming to bring us back into a deeper community with one another. Christ comes to level the playing field. “The valleys are lifted up” which means that those who are deprived are put on level ground. “The mountains are brought low” which means that those who have all the advantages in this world are brought to a level of equality with those who have been beaten down. The landscape is changed so that we meet one another in the merciful middle. This is a vision of justice. This is a vision of peace.

And John preached a baptism of repentance. Repentance is not moping around feeling sorry for petty sins. Sometimes the church has been guilty of keeping us self-absorbed and preoccupied with our guilt. Nor is repentance only a change of mind and a change of heart. The repentance John proclaimed was a complete metanoia, a complete turning around from self to God. In today’s gospel we see that this includes taking very specific action to make clear changes in our behavior.

When John’s words begin to sink in, the people began to ask, “What must we then do?” John does not say, “Well I want you to feel real bad, really bad about yourself and your life and the way you have lived it.” Nor does he say, “Just believe in Jesus” and all will be well. It is much deeper than that. It involves an ethical change in the way we live our lives. John says, “If you have two coats, give one to someone that does not have one.” Level the playing field. Create a loving community where all are cared for. John says, “if you have plenty of food, share what you have with someone who does not have any.” How you live your life, matters! Others are depending on you.

John speaks to two groups of people who in Jesus’ day were most guilty of using their position of power to take advantage and abuse the poor. To the soldiers he said, “Don’t extort money and falsely accuse people to fill your own pockets with money at the expense of the weak. Be satisfied with your wages.” To the tax collectors he said, “Collect only what you are assign to collect - don’t rob people for more.” John is telling us, “Use your positions of power, your place in the world, to benefit, not harm those most in need.”

Way back during the Great Depression, there was a farm family struggling just to make ends meet. It is fair to say this Iowa family were practically subsistence farmers - making it by on what they themselves were able to produce. Whatever extra they had, they sold and used the cash to pay for the few items they could not produce themselves.

As hard as life was, they were somewhat more fortunate than many. They had a house, land, and were able to produce what they needed. They did not have a mortgage on the house or the land as many did - though every month remained a struggle to get through. In the larger scheme of life, their position in the world was not so very important.

One day a middle aged couple came by knocked on the door an asked for food, saying they would be glad to do anything to work for it. She gave them a small job that members of her family could have done. Reached up to the cookie jar in the kitchen where the family kept its money, and forked a couple of dollars. This is not the first time she had done this. The young teenage son had seen this before and this time he decided to protest: “Mom, you cannot keep giving money away to these people. You are going to make us poor like them.” His mother looked at him, put both of her hands on his shoulders and said, “Michael, God has given us what we have and the day we do not give to a family like that, is the day that we are truly poor.”

No matter how little we believe we have or how small we believe we are - we are a part of the whole, we share what we have. We do not play small in this world we play very big. We share in God’s economy of the kingdom of God - where the playing field is made level.

One more story from the book, "It Was On Fire When I Lay Down on It". When I was a small child during the war, we were very poor and we lived in a remote village. One day, on the road, I found the broken pieces of a mirror. A German motorcycle had been wrecked in that place.

I tried to find all the pieces and put them together, but it was not possible, so I kept only the largest piece. This one. And by scratching it on a stone I made it round. I began to play with it as a toy and became fascinated by the fact that I could reflect light in to dark places where the sun would never shine - in deep holes and crevices and dark closets. It became a game for me to get light into the most inaccessible places I could find.

I kept the little mirror, and as I went about my growing up, I would take it out in idle moments and continue the challenge of the game. As I became a man, I grew to understand that this was not just a child's game but a metaphor for what I might do with my life. I came to understand that I am not the light or the source of light. But light - truth, understanding, knowledge - is there, and it will only shine in many dark places if I reflect it.

I am a fragment of a mirror whose whole design and shape I do not know. Nevertheless, with what I have I can reflect light into the dark places of this world - into the black places in the hearts of men - and change some things in some people. Perhaps others may see and do likewise. This is what I am about. This is the meaning of life.

From the perspective of God, it really does not matter what our position is in life. The only question is: what are we going to do with what we have been given? John says, “Repent and prepare the way for the Lord.” Prepare the way for the child born to peasant parents who revealed by his life just how precious all our lives really are.

Published: 1/5/2010 12:22 PM

Why Does Jesus Delay? John 11:32-42

Allen Mothershed — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 23:21:34 GMT

Body:

Introduction

I suspect almost everyone here has had an experience with grief and loss. For some of you, your loss has been someone dear and close to you. Today many of you are here to remember and give thanks for a family member or a friend, whose loss has forever changed your life. This past year probably has been a year of pain and tears, maybe anger and regret, and loneliness and change. You never fully understand grief and loss until you are in the middle of it.

I hope that you have had significant people be your friend through your loss and the change. No one really can go this alone. There are many people who do understand and who are there just when we have need of them.

However, there are people who mean well, but who say unhelpful “helpful” comments. Sometimes I have heard people say, “He is in a better place now.” or “He is God’s little angel now.” Wouldn’t the better place be with his loved ones and his friends? Others will say, “God has some purpose in this - you will grow from this.” But what sort of damnable purpose justifies this kind of pain and this degree of loss? And we may indeed grow from it, but please don’t minimize my pain by trying to put pretty icing on a bad cake.

The Scripture

This last unhelpful comment brings up a rather bewildering question about something Jesus did in our gospel story today. Jesus received news from his best friends, Martha and Mary that his good friend, Lazarus, is gravely ill and he is asked to come at once to help him. What does Jesus do? He waits two days - he waits. And then, when he decides to go, he tells his disciples in a matter of fact way that Lazarus their friend is dead. Furthermore he is glad this has happen so that they may believe. He adds that it is all for God’s glory.

I do not know about you, but I have never felt too satisfied with that answer on Jesus’ part. For God’s glory? Wouldn’t God be more glorified if Jesus had gotten there on time to prevent this tragic loss in the first place?

Martha and Mary, Lazarus’ sisters, and Jesus’ good friends, are not too happy about this either. Martha confronts Jesus with her truth: “Jesus, if you had been here my brother would not have died!” In other words, where were you when we needed you? Why did you not come when we asked you to? Then later on, sister Mary with the same questions: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died!” And still later on, after we see Jesus crying, the crowd that has gathered questions Jesus' sincerity. Some say look how he loved Lazarus. But others say, “Well, if he had really loved him, he would have come sooner.” Friends don’t let friends die when they can do something about it.

Now what is going on here? Why does Jesus delay? One of the things I noticed in looking at the story this time is that the story is like a parable. I am not saying it did not happen; I am only saying that this story, like the parables of Jesus, capture honestly what reality is like, but they transform our perspective so that we come to see reality in an entirely different manner. This story tells us honestly what our experience of death is like, but then it gives us an entirely new perspective on death and God’s ability to transform death into life.

Our Experience of Death

The story is true to what we sometimes experience. We are dumbfounded by death. Why does God, like Jesus, not come and spare us the pain of such losses? If God really cares, why does God not protect us from such tragic, terrible losses? Why do we have to endure death and loss?

Death has the power to shake the foundation of our lives to the core. Physically we are affected. Our bodies feel the pain like an illness and sometimes we do get ill from grief. Our social life is shaken up. We don’t know now how to fit in or we don’t feel like talking to people. Our mental functioning is confused. We do not think straight. We forget things. Sometimes we may even feel we are out of our minds. Our emotions are out of control. We no longer seem to be the masters of our own emotions. We cry or feel irritated at all the “wrong” times and all the “wrong” places. Professionally, we don’t seem to be very productive and in our world there is not much grace for people going through a loss in the work place. Those of you who are still grieving the loss of a loved one - Don’t let anyone every tell you that you should be over this by now. There is no set time table for grief. Everyone has their own way and pace of grieving. Spiritually, we can find that our very assumptions about God are all challenged. Where is God? Does God really care?

Jesus’ Experience of Death

This story, true to our lives, raises those questions for us. And then something significant happens. Jesus sees Mary weeping and the crowd with her and then Jesus weeps. Jesus cries. Now there is a lot of debate as to why Jesus is crying.

Some say he is crying because of the death of his friend, Lazarus. That would seem to be the obvious answer. Only problem is: Jesus does not seem to be upset when he waited for Lazarus to die and he seems to have such confidence that he will be resurrected, why would he cry?

Some say that the Greek word translated “weep” really needs to be translated Jesus was “angry” or “disturbed". And they propose Jesus is upset that the people around him are slow to believe. He is not really crying - he is angry.

Some point out - helpfully, I think - that Jesus is crying because he knows that, as soon as he heals Lazarus, Jesus himself will be signing his own death warrant and exchanging places with him. In John’s gospel, it is because of this miracle the leaders of Israel feel so threatened that they determine to kill Jesus.

It maybe that all those things were going on inside of Jesus. But I will tell you what I think. Something more profound was happening in that moment. Jesus was having an epiphany. In that moment, standing before the threshold of his dear friend's grave, seeing the pain of Lazarus’ sister, realizing his own death was fast approaching, something happens within Jesus‘ spirit. Jesus identifies with all of us. In that moment, he confronts the pain of death for all of us - and he cries like all of us and maybe he is even angry at death like us.

So this story tells us that death is an inevitability. It is an unavoidable part of life. We have no choice about it. Do not ask me why. It is just the way life is. This story is honest, because it does not try and take us away from that reality. It does not try to explain death away with some trite cliché. But it also tells us, that God is with us - God takes upon God’s own self - through Jesus, the son, the pain of death.

Perhaps for some of you, it is enough that God simply understand and identify with us in the experience of death and loss. But this story does not leave us there. It has an even greater message of hope. Jesus shouts at the top of his lungs, “Lazarus, come out!” And the dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth.” And Jesus said, “Unbind him, and let him go!”

Yes, death is inevitable, but in Jesus life is inevitable. Our God is more powerful than death. God has the final word. This is our faith. This is our hope.

Application to Our Losses

Many of you who are here today have lost a loved one in this past year. There is perhaps no time in our life when our faith - what we believe about the purpose of life and our ultimate destiny - becomes so essential than at the time of the death of a loved one or a friend. It is then we most need to know and trust that death does not have the final word.

It is unfortunate in our time that funerals have often been reduced to only celebrations of the life of our loved one. It is that, of course, but it is much more. Something far more profound is happening in a funeral. More profoundly, a funeral is about helping our loved one complete the journey of his or her baptism. In the funeral we are walking the last steps with our loved one and we hand them back to God. We go the last leg of the journey with them and then are reminded that this journey for them is not over. We can let go, because God holds on.

Today gather around the holy communion table to receive the holy sacrament of communion. It is the long standing belief of the church that when we gather around the communion table we are meet there by not only Christ our host, but by all the saints of God - our loved ones who have gone before us. We call it the communion of the saints. It is here, in Christ, that we can experience and know their presence with us. This meal bridges eternity with us. In this meal we eat today is bread from heaven - a taste of the meal we one day will share in heaven. In the very act of sharing and in eating this meal we are united again with one another and we share in the hope embodied in “I am the resurrection and the life” has met us here.

No matter our loss therefore let us prepare to come and to receive. For in this meal we know that Christ has the final word and the word is not death...it is life.

Published: 11/3/2009 9:49 PM

The Power to Bless and the Power to Curse James 3:1-12

Allen Mothershed — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 00:58:15 GMT

Body:

“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me!” They are just words...Do you agree with that? You do not agree, do you? Every single person here has had many experiences that say the statement is not true. When was a word spoken to you that was carelessly said and affected you negatively?

I remember one of those times when I was making the decision to go to theology school. The decision to go to theology school was not an easy one for me. I’ve known some people who told me that they had an undeniable word from God they could not resist following. It was not like that for me. I stewed over the decision. But I had some intuition that just persisted and I decided that I should simply follow it and see where it would lead.

It was in the Spring time before I graduated from college when a young Christian guy that I knew asked me, “Allen, what are you going to do when you graduate?” I said, “Well, I’ve decided to go to seminary.” Quickly, he said, in voice where everybody else could hear it: “Allen - was that just your decision...or have you REALLY prayed about this?” Even though I knew his intention was not to hurt me - and that his remark came out of his rather arrogant assumptions about my brand of Christianity, it was a careless remark that wounded me and haunted me and stayed with me.

Are they just words? Words sometimes appear trivial. As one writer points out, they have no substance, no solid form. You can not weigh a word.

We live in a time when more and more it seems words are just seen as innocent speech - they are just words. The freedom of speech has started to mean that it does not matter how we speak. Maybe it is because we live in a highly psychologized culture that says, “express yourself” - don’t hold back - let your feelings go. Listen to the public debate, “What do you hear?” Poison. Spin. Words that are meant to win an argument but have little relationship to the truth. Listen to the way people speak to each other, “What do you hear?” Carelessness. Rudeness. A lot of superficiality.

But are they so innocent? Words are in reality a form of power. They have the power to bless and the power to curse, the power to build up and the power to tear down, the power to save and the power to damn. Listen. “You have cancer!” “I don’t love you anymore.” “I love you so much.” “Daddy.” “Thank you.” “I am sorry, I am so sorry.” Can you feel that? Can you sense the power of those words?

Our Biblical tradition tells us something very different about the power of words. There is such wisdom in this ancient biblical text that we in our time so need to hear. A fellow pastor tells about his disbelief when his Sunday School teacher first told him the story of blind, old Isaac's pronouncing the blessing on the wrong son. You remember the story...Jacob, the second-born, son, tricked his older brother and fools his blind, old father into pronouncing the paternal blessing on the wrong kid! That blessing, once spoken, give the majority of the family wealth to the one it is spoken to.

When he heard the story, it just did not make sense. “So he pronounced the blessing on the wrong son: "Why didn't he just take it back?" You know when you are young, if you did something you didn’t like, you just declare a “do-over.” It is like a Mulligan in golf. No real problem. Take back the blessing and give it to the right son!

“But his teacher told him that for the Hebrew people words had power which, once spoken, once let loose in the world, could not be called back or retrieved. Like arrows flung in flight from a bow, they could never be taken back.” Like King Kong let out of his cage. Once it is out - there is no going back. It will do what it will now do. Word are powerful. They are not simply labels for things. They are not innocent.

The writer of the book of James would tell us that our words have such great power and there is such danger in how we chose to use them. One of the great affirmations in the book of James is that all of us are made in the image of God. Imagine that: we are made in the image of God! But what does it mean? Does it mean that we look like God? Surely not. Does it mean we have free will? Yes, that is the most common way of understanding it. Does it mean we have dominion over the earth? According to the book of Genesis we do, for good or for evil, we do.

However, there is a deeper meaning to the phrase which goes along with these meanings. We are a reflection of the essences of God. The essence of God is that God is always creating. With WORDS God creates. God speaks, “Let there be light!” and the light shines through the darkness. God speaks, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kind...” and the world is teaming with life. God speaks, “Let us make human beings in our image...and God created them male and female.” “And the WORD became flesh...” in Jesus the Christ - the power to create new life was born and dwelt among us.

This same power of words - to speak a word and to create life, to build up life is given to us. This same power to speak a word and to tear down and to destroy is given to us. Of all God’s good creatures on earth, we alone are given the power to create or to destroy with our words. The ability to speak a WORD is a part of our affinity with God.

James tells us that we who have power of words - the power to create or to destroy - are always in the midst of a spiritual struggle. It is not just a matter of whether we are going to be nice and polite and appropriate. On a daily basis, we make a decision about whether we are going to join God in creating a beautiful world or we unite ourselves with darker forces in our world to tear down and destroy.

We all know intuitively what James says is true. Most of us can look back at our childhoods and remember the people who shaped us for good or for bad. I remember my second grade teacher, Ms. Harmon. I do not know why she was so abrupt, so abrasive with her words - but she was. I did not hold my pencil correctly. My handwriting from very early on was poor. The joke in the family was that I should have been a doctor with bad writing like that. For Ms. Harmon it was not a joke. She patroled the room with ruler and one day when she came by my desk - she slapped the back of my hand with that ruler and shouted for the room to hear, “Can’t you even hold your pencil straight?” I was so humiliated. When the last month of school she got such a bad case of poison ivy and had to stay home...I was happy.

I did not tell my parents until the end of the year and they made sure that the next year, I had an affirming teacher, Ms. Ferris. She was a member of my church and a woman of warmth and sincere faith. We did a geographical workbook and I chose to do it on the country of India. She came by my desk and handed me back my project. “Allen, how did you feel about what you did?” “I don’t know;” I said as I looked down, “I guess, ok....” You should feel great...it is one of the best anyone did.” I looked down and there is an “A+” and a “good job” crocodile stamp on the front cover. She was only doing her job, but her words were like the words of an angel, words of grace for a kid who so needed a little encouragement.

I am sure that Ms. Ferris has no memory of what she did for me or any of the words she used. But I do. I do.

James would tell us to be careful how we use our words. They have power. We participate in the creative power of God or in the destructive power of evil in this world. Let me ask you to think about something: How do you speak to the people in your life you most cherish? Do you consider carefully the words that you choose? “Are you slow to speak, and quick to listen,” which is what James instructs his church to be. Our ability to listen and to understand one another is the best antidote to careless speech. So do you honor those you love by a silence that allows you to really hear them? When you do speak, do your words come out of the peace of Christ that is within you? Do they come out of a reflective silence that knows, your words have the power to build up and also to tear down? James tells us that it is hard to control the tongue. We can tame wild animals, but who can fully control their tongue? Difficult to reach perfection, but do we allow the peace and the love of Christ within us to guide us much of the time?

As we begin this new program year together, let me ask you something to consider: How do you speak about your church? What words do you use to tell others about your love and appreciation for this place? How do you speak about your church when you have a problem? Do you consider carefully how your perception might be spoken to the benefit of the whole or do your words fly out carelessly like blind bats out of a cave into a dark night? James says that our words can be like a tiny spark that starts a wild fire that burns out of control, a fire that comes from the pits of hell itself. Do we realize that how we speak has so much more power than we imagine and that we have been given the same creative power that even God has to build up and to give life?

So we begin this new program year with an invitation from the writings of James to know that we are made in the image of God and have the power to create new life with our word. So how we speak to each other - as teachers, as church leaders and members, as family members, and as citizens of this world - is in reality a spiritual battle that we are called to win with the grace of God. Let us speak in the spirit of Christ.

1 R. Wayne Stacy, The Power to Bless: James 3:1-12, Review and Expositor 97 (2000), I am indebted to this writer for some of the ideas for this sermon.

Published: 9/14/2009 10:53 PM

The National Healthcare Debate

Allen Mothershed — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 18:49:45 GMT

Body:

Tempers are flaring and words are being exchanged as people, politicians, and special interest groups take sides on the issue of healthcare and the possibility of a National Healthcare plan. As a pastor of a church with many people of very diverse opinions, I do not wade lightly into the swamp of emotions and arguments – many of them increasingly personal - that this debate generates. Humility demands that we all acknowledge that no one can say for absolutely certain what the right plan is. But my job, as a pastor, is to speak from a faith vantage point – especially the issues of morality that are involved. My Christian morality says that the need for our nation to do something regarding healthcare is not debatable – only the details are.

I offer several suggestions for reflection that are influenced by what I understand to be the imperatives of our faith:

One: The principles of justice from both our Hebrew and Christian scriptures demand that all God’s children be shown equitable compassion and mercy when it comes to the care of both the body and the mind. It is not acceptable that some people have great healthcare while others have none or inadequate healthcare. There is hardly a book in the Bible that does not raise the issue of justice for especially the weakest in our society and the marginalized. The core scriptural principle is that God has compassion on us and that we therefore out of gratitude are to have compassion on others. The scriptures are also clear this is not simply a matter of personal morality, but that the nations of the world and its leaders are commanded to act with justice and regard for the weakest. The question is: will we (as a nation/society) be the Pharisee and the Levite in the story of the Good Samarian who pass by the injured man along side the road or will we be the Samaritan who was an enemy of the man but who acted like a friend? For too long, as a nation, we have walked by the man in the ditch when compassion and Christ-like concern demands that we stop and care for the neighbor in need.

Two: The example of selfless concern and the spirit of Christ’s sacrifice demands that we think not only about how any healthcare plan will effect us, but also the most in need. Whatever the plan – we want to be sure that all are covered and that we no longer will tolerate our friends and neighbors going bankrupt in order to pay for healthcare for their loved one. We make sure people are not excluded from affordable healthcare because they have a preexisting condition. We are willing to help pay the cost for those who cannot afford it. Community is not built by everyone being out only for himself or herself. The spirit of Christ means that my neighbor’s child is my child when it comes to being sure he or she receives good healthcare. It has been painful to listen to many people discuss healthcare and say things like, “I should not have to pay for anyone’s healthcare but my own” or only ask, “How does this affect me?” How is that having the mind of Christ?

Three: Let truth reign. There is falsehood on both sides of this debate. Let the light of God’s truth cut through falsehoods being spoken and rumors being spread. God’s truth builds up community and shows compassion and fosters positive movement, it does not distort or tell half-truths or pass on falsehood in the interest of tearing down.

Finally: Our words need to move to positive action. At lot is at stake in this debate. The founding pastor of First Congregational Church, Moline, Rev. Alan Hitchcock, and many of our early members fought a long battle against slavery – they back up their convictions with action. It was controversial with some members in our church, but we now look back at their convictions and know they were on the right side of history. It is up to us to continue the tradition of social involvement for the common good. We may not bring the Kingdom of God on earth, but we can give the world a humane taste of what God’s reign of justice is like. That will happen if we can do our part to bring about meaningful healthcare reform.

Published: 8/18/2009 8:33 PM

Living with Heart

Allen Mothershed — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 15:33:25 GMT

Body:

Many years ago I attended a seminar at a large church in Jackson, Mississippi and afterwards there was a party at one of the member’s houses. A large number of us were gathered around talking, and I saw a large beautiful oil painting of a young-adult man over the fireplace mantle. With the group standing around, I said to the host, “That is a beautiful portrait. Who is it of?” “It is my son…he died many years ago…he was a hero.” He told all of us the story of how his very noble and brave son was fishing at the spill way at Ross Barnet Reservoir and a little boy fell in the fast moving rapid and his son jumped into the water to save the boy, but bumped his head and died. He was a hero.

Later on, when we were talking, just the two of us, I said to him, “How do you go on after you lose your son?” And in private he said to me tearfully, “You don’t ever get over it, you learn to go on.”

What stood out for me was the way he spoke differently in public and then in private. In public he said with pride, “He is a hero.” In private he said with tears, “You don’t ever get over it.” And of course both are true. But there is a difference in how we present ourselves when we are in public and when we are in private. There is our public self and then there is our private self. There is the person we present to the world and then there is the more reserved and hidden person we reveal only carefully, if at all.

I think about this split between the public and the private as I read about King David in our scripture this morning. There is the great and powerful King David who is also a father. And in our scripture this morning – those two roles are very much at odds.

David was a very great and powerful king, but we discover in 2 Samuel that he was not a very good father. For those who may have forgotten the story, Absalom was the son of David who killed his brother because his brother had raped his sister and then Absalom fled the country. Eventually, his father allowed Absalom back into the kingdom, but for a time David refuses Absalom’s pleas to see him. David only calls him, “the young man, Absalom,” even though the text makes it very clear that David still loves his son.

In time, Absalom staged a coup to over-throw David from the throne and he succeeds. But even while he is in flight, David has his own loyal army and he sends the army out to fight the army of Israel and his son Absalom. And in the battle, against David’s orders, the general and his men kill Absalom while he is hanging in tree branches. Proudly, one of the soldiers in his army comes to David and says, “Your enemies have been defeated and the traitor, Absalom is dead.” You might think David the powerful King would be celebrate his kingdom has been restored, but here is what we hear:

O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom!

Would I had died instead of you,

O Absalom, my son, my son!

Perhaps no poet or modern play writer could have penned words so dramatic or so utterly wrenching as these. The lines of David ring out like something Shakespeare might have put on the lips of King Lear. You do not have to know anything about King David and his troubled relationship with his son, Absalom to feel pity. These words resonate with anyone who has ever been a parent and allow their child to get so deep in their hearts.

I found Frederick Buechner’s words helpful:

“He meant it, of course. If he could have done the boy’s dying for him, he would have done it. If he could have paid the price for the boy’s betrayal, he would have paid it. If he could have given his own life to make the boy alive again, he would have given it. But even a king can’t do things like that. As later history was to prove, it takes a God.”

One of the reasons we are so drawn to David as a Biblical figure is that he is so human. He expresses his emotions. He stays with his own truth. But everyone is not happy about this. One of his head generals, Joab, comes to him and says, “Why are you crying??? Why are you blubber faced over this traitor who sought your life, your wives, and your kingdom??? Twenty thousand Israelites are in the fields dead and you are shaming the soldiers who risk their lives for you! You would be happy that Absalom were alive today and we were all dead!

Joab is the “realist,” the one looking after the public good. It is time to wipe the tears off your face, put on your best smile, fix yourself up, get out there on that balcony, and celebrate with your troops! In other words, swallow your pain, and be responsible.

Of course there is some truth to what Joab is saying. We have our responsibilities and the tragic or difficult events of our lives do not lessen those. There are other people we love. There are others who need and depend on us. Even though a part of us does die with our losses, but not everything needs to die. And so David does get out on that balcony and he does address his troops.

Do you see why this is one of our most treasured and valuable stories? Do you see why some of our greatest writers, like William Faulkner, can base an entire book themes of this tragic tale? It is a reflection of life. This story is our story. We all have our public and our private selves. We have the person that everyone sees and knows and we have the person that we keep more out of sight. There is the responsible self, the person that needs to get up in the morning and go through the paces, and there are our struggles, our doubts, and our pain.

There is nothing wrong about this. There is a time in our lives when we need a Joab to say to us, time to get up and get going, time to be a responsible human being and deal with the reality this day has for you. If you forget reality, more disaster will come your way. But my experience in most people’s lives is that Joab is too strong a voice in their lives. There are too many people like Joab saying to us, “put away your crying and your suffering, and just get on with life. Your pain and your struggle are not welcome here!” There are too many messages that shame us into burying what in reality is our common struggle.

As I think about this, I think of the young married couple that lived in the very next apartment to me when I was serving my first church. They were a loving couple, very nice people who had just joined the church and had not been married for so long. One Sunday morning, I woke up to the sounds of angry voices getting louder and louder. They were really at it. I got to church early, went to the adult Sunday School class and in they walk – both of them so nicely dressed, with smile plastered on their faces as if nothing had happened.

We had a nicely prepared biblical lesson that day. Everyone discussed the scripture and nodded in agreement with the platitude we are suppose to agree to in our faith. But more mature now, I look back at that day and wonder, what would have happened if we had made church a safe enough place where that couple could have come in that day and said something like: “It has been one lousy day! We started the morning out with a loud argument over something that now seems stupid. This first year of marriage is not AT ALL what we thought was going to be. Anybody else know what I mean?” I guarantee you it would have been a LOT more interesting Sunday school lesson, maybe even transformative.

I sometimes wonder what would happen in the middle of a war, where both sides are shooting at each other, blowing each other up because leaders far away from the front have decided that national interests are at stake, what would happen if soldiers stopped shooting for a day, sat down and traded the pictures of the children they have at home and love. What if they talked about the life they hope to have, if they ever get home. What if they could actually share from the pain of their lives and talk about the losses they have experienced. Could they then pick up their guns again the next day and start shooting?

The poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow once said, “If I could read the secret history of our enemies, we would find in each person’s life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.”

David knew something that his general Joab did not know. Transformation does not come from kings covering up their emotions, dressing themselves in personas of invulnerability, and getting back to being “responsible.” As Walter Brueggemann says, change, new life, comes from grieving fathers who have owned the pain in their hearts enough to see how they would do things differently.

It is only when we face our pain that we grow in our capacity to love. It is only in sharing our pain that we create a more human and loving community. Walter Brueggemann also says, that what makes the Church so important and so dangerous in our society is that we are the ones who are called to notice and to treasure and to pay attention to the hurt underneath and to see that in that hurt is precisely where hope comes from.

This is why the emblem of our faith is the cross – the symbol of suffering and shame. On the cross, Jesus brings out the private and makes it public. Naked and broken on a rugged piece of wood, Jesus says to us “all the world’s pain matters, because I have redeemed it and transformed it into life.” Let us be the ones who will attest to the world that even in pain – God makes all things new. Amen.

Rev. Allen Mothershed, First Congregational Church, Moline, August 9, 2009

Walter Brueggemann, “Slogans – And Hurts Underneath,” February 16, 1985, Sermons from Duke Chapel, ed. William Williman, p. 246-250. This opening story was sparked in my memory by a similar one by Brueggemann. I am indebted to Dr. Brueggemann for his interpretation of this story of David and direction of this sermon.

Ibid, p. 249.

Published: 8/10/2009 10:35 AM

Now We Are in Deep

Allen Mothershed — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 20:43:21 GMT

Body:

I know some of you know what it is like to have an older sister or brother who got you in trouble from time to time. My sister, Cindy, who was about 3 years older than me (17 at the time), knew how to get me in trouble. There was a school dance going on and our mom and dad made my sister and her friends take my friend and me to the dance. Horror of horrors to be seen in public with your little brother and his little friend.

I soon found out why my sister was really upset. My sister and her friend had secretly purchased a bottle of wine on a trip to Memphis and hidden it out in a field – just for the dance that evening. As we drove down the dirt/gravel road where they had hidden the bottle, she gave me the stern big sister look and said, “Allen, if you ever tell mom or dad about this --- I will kill you.”

She pulled over to the side of that sandy dirt road, found the hidden bottle, got back in the car and tried to pull away. Only problem was the car wheels – all four of them – where stuck in the sandy mud. Like quick sand, the more she tried to get that car out, the more the wheels went down into the mud, until the floorboard of that Pontiac Electra 225 is oozing mud. Now we are in real deep. Finally, she called this wrecker service just up the road and a teenage boy answered: “Sorry, can’t help you. Daddy is not here and I ain’t got permission to take out the wrecker.” But we are in dire straits and my sister pours on her charm mixed with a few tears and the next thing you know, that young teenager is out there with the wrecker.

Do not ask me how it happened, but that young man did not know what he was doing. Somehow, the wrecker started to get bogged down in that mud with us. He kept getting it unstuck, but only by driving further out into the soggy muddy field. By the time that truck was completely stuck it was about 50 yards out in the middle of somebody’s soybean field.

Now we are all in real deep – if you know what I mean. Finally, about 12 jocks who had been hanging out at the Loeb’s barbecue came out and picked up the car and we are on our way as that young man has to call a competing wrecker service to pull his truck out at his daddy’s expense. Sometimes one very bad decision leads to another even worse decision and that leads to consequences you hope you have to never face up to.

Our story today is about getting in real deep. David’s affair with Bathsheba takes getting into trouble to a whole another level. When I read the story this past week, I found myself horrified. There is a coldness that comes over you when you read this account, not unlike the cold, tragic feel you feel sometimes when you open your newspaper to read of the horrific and inhuman crimes people do to one another. Only this is not about some creepy stranger in a neighborhood on the other side of town, but about David, the greatest king of Israel, a hero of our faith.

The first thing we learn in the story is very telling. “In the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle, David sent out (his general), Joab…and all of Israel to ravaged the Ammonites. But David remained at home.” David is at the peak of his power and he leaves the hard work to his underlings while he spends long afternoons resting on his couch.

Lots of bad things happen when you are in boredom. David looks out his window and sees Bathsheba bathing on her roof top. As one writer puts it, there is no indecisiveness in David now. “David acts quickly upon his desires. He saw. He sent. He took. He lay. There is no long tortured wrestling with conscience. David is at the height of his autonomy and royal power.” He has reached that point that most people only dream of: he can do what ever he wants to do. He is in effect acting as if he is like God.

There is a temptation to rewrite this scene and make David more innocent. Many movies and novels written about this event want to suggest that Bathsheba was “asking for it,” but absolutely nothing in the story suggests that she was guilty of any sin. At worst, this was an act of sexual assault and at best, it was an inexcusable act of dominance and abuse of power for which David is solely guilty.

Finally, Bathsheba is given a voice and she sends word to David, “I am pregnant.” “Now David is in deep.” He comes up with a plan to have Bathsheba’s husband come home from the war and lay with his wife so he can mistakenly believe that he is the one who impregnated his wife. Only there is a problem. Uriah is a gallant man and a loyal soldier in David’s army. He is not even an Israelite, but a Hittite, and yet this outsider proves to be so loyal and committed to David and Israel that he refuses to enjoy the comfort of his wife while others are out of the battlefield in discomfort. Even when he is made drunk with wine, he does not dishonor his fellow soldiers and have the comfort of his wife.

Do you see what is happening here? Uriah is the honorable man, not David. He is the only one in the story who is focused on the common good and not just his own comfort and well being. David is only preoccupied with his own satisfaction. He has no regard for Bathsheba and does not even give the woman a second thought until he hears she is pregnant. And his sin only increases.

Fearing discovery, he arranges for Uriah and his men to be sent to the front where he has instructed his general to withdraw his other men so that Uriah will be killed. And that is just what happens. David sets Uriah up so that he and other brave men with him die so that David may cover up his sin. Now we are in real deep.

Now I find this story powerful because it is my story. No – I have not committed adultery or murder – but still this story is my story and it is your story as well. This story is our story – because it has something to say about our own ability to do great harm and make tragic decisions.

The first lesson I learn when I reflect on this story is this: We find ourselves in deep trouble when we like David think not of the common good but only ourselves. Unlike Uriah, David was preoccupied with himself and his own desires to the point that other people around him cease to be real human beings but objects to fulfill his desire and pleasure. In an individualist culture such as our – for all that is good about that – there is always such an incredible danger that we become so concerned with our own selves that we cease to consider the well being of others.

The truth is – when you were baptized you were given a higher calling. In baptism you are united with Christ. You become a member of the body of Christ. And as a member of the body of Christ – it is never no longer just about you and what you want. We are to be like Christ as Paul says it:

“Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross.’

This past week I finally was able to watch the film “Amazing Grace,” which is about William Wilberforce, a member of the English Parliament in the late 1700’s. As a Christian, William became convinced that the evils of the slave trade had to be ended. For 18 long hard years Wilberforce brought over 20 resolutions to parliament attempting to outlaw the heinous business of the slave trade. He was mocked, laughed at, called unpatriotic, and accused of being unfaithful to the King. The other side argued that there would be economic disaster and ruin to the nation with out the slave trade. The French would only take over the slave trade if the English gave it up and cause a dangerous loss of power and influence for the nation to their enemies. National security was at stake and anyone who argued, as Wilberforce did, could not be a true patriot.

Against such painful resistance, why would someone like Wilberforce persist when he had nothing to personally gain? He was a young man, at the start, with a brilliant career in front of him. He had a lot of wealth and prestige. The emotional burden and ridicule brought physical sickness and hardship on him. Why be so concerned for slaves from Africa with whom you have virtually no relationship and nothing to personally gain? Because William Wilberforce was not like so many other people – he was not absorbed in his own life – looking only out for what he has to gain. Unlike King David – Wilberforce always considered the well being of others as well as his own. He was a true follower of Christ.

Sometimes I hear people in political discussion asking only how something will affect them and their lives. I am always disappointed and disheartened because as a Christian I do not hear them concerned with the well being of others as a primary concern. David in all his success became so focused on himself that he forgot to consider the well being of others and how his actions affect them.

This brings us to another lesson from our story. David not only forgot about the wellbeing of others, he forgot God. As great of a leader as he was, David at the peak of his power, forgot that everything he had was because of God. Therefore his sin was not just against Beersheba or Uriah or the nation but also against God. When we forget that we belong to God, that God has loved us and gifted us and guided us and called us, then we are most in danger of doing harm to ourselves and to others. But when we remember that we belong to God – that in our baptism – we have been claimed, we have wisdom about how to live in love and charity with our neighbor.

“Now we are in deep!” David forgetting his neighbor and his responsibility to them. David forgetting God and his call to obey God. David is mired down in the muddy sin of forgetting who he is and who he is called to be. Next week we will hear more from this story – more about how we move beyond our failures. But for now I ask you to consider something else.

One day at the end of your life – someone will stand at the front of this church and say some very nice things about you – things you did for your community and for your family. But let me ask you to do something now – something David wished that he had done – ask yourself: “Am I living my life with integrity? Does everything I say or do come out of my integrity with God’s call and claim on my life?

Rev. Allen Mothershed, First Congregational Church, Moline, July 26, 2009

William Willoman, “A Peculiarly Christian Account of Sin,” Theology Today, July, 1993.

Published: 7/26/2009 4:07 PM

A Ministry of Reconciliation

Allen Mothershed — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 19:45:42 GMT

Body:

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation…” 2 Corinthians 5:17-18

The apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians describes his role and that of all Christians when he talks about being an “ambassador of reconciliation.” As a new creation in Christ, we are called to a ministry of reconciliation. Our call is to bring together a world divided. In many places Paul talks about this division as being a division between male and female, one nationality or race against another, the powerless (slave) and the powerful (free).

The recent controversy around the brief arrest of Dr. Henry Louis Gates by police Sgt. Jim Crowley offer a window into the racial divisions that are in our communities. Most revealing were the quick reactions by supporters of the police actions and by supporters of Dr. Gates. The opinions were strong and emotionally expressed. Rarely was there the sense that one side really listened to the other.

Many in the black community reacted strongly out of their own experience of having been racially profiled. They point out that statistics studies backup their experience. When I worked on Chicago’s North Shore, racial profiling was a significant issue. A few white pastors, including myself, gathered with black clergy and members of the black community who live or work on the North Shore. We listened as they shared their stories. They were painful stories. Outstanding citizens shared about being stopped for no apparent reason; the fear of being mistreated should they not respond in the manner deemed appropriate; and above all the humiliation of being singled out because of their race.

I have heard people say since the Dr. Gates incident, “Well, blacks are involved in a disproportionate number of crimes, so profiling is good police work.” But put the shoe on your own foot – imagine that “people with red hair” were thought to commit the most crimes and you had red hair and were frequently stopped. At a minimum, we need to be able to hear that it makes sense from Dr. Gates experience that he would react strongly, especially taking into account that he was at his own house and had shown his I. D. and was probably exhausted from flying overseas. This is true even if he was not, in fact, being racially profiled.

It also makes sense that many in the white community reacted as they did. No one wants to be accused of being a racist. Sgt. Jim Crowley was responding to a call, attempting to protect the home of Dr. Gates. He was doing his job and he claims that he in no way treated Dr. Gates any differently than he would have anyone else who did not respond to his order. He has an outstanding record as a policeman. And ultimately, who really know the motive of Sgt. Jim Crowley? Is it fair to accuse a policeman of racism every time a white officer arrests a black man under these circumstances?

The President’s impulse to have a “beer conference” with both of these men is a symbol of what needs to happen in all our communities. Let us stop reacting and start listening. Let us have the hard conversation with people of color. Issues now are so politicized and people are immediately polarized into opposing camps. We can easily guess how many of our political commentators are going to react before a word has been spoken. News reporters are increasingly expressing their biased opinions as a part of their reporting (where is Walter Cronkite when we need him). Let’s get beyond right and wrong and reach the level of respectful understanding. That is what Paul said is our role: to be ambassadors of reconciliation. Have the mind of Christ and his humility to listen and to reconcile.

Published: 8/6/2009 3:13 PM

Holding God Up 2 -- Samuel 6:1-19

Allen Mothershed — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 20:03:17 GMT

Body:

I was just about ready to preach this morning a sermon that focuses on David dancing almost nude before the Ark of God. It is a sensational image – David the King of Israel – twirling around the Ark of God in a loincloth – losing himself in a moment of joyful abandonment. Frankly, it would have made sense to focus the entire sermon on David the King of Israel dancing in the very same week we have been flooded with images of Michael Jackson the King of Pop and Dance. But like many of you, I am tired of the sensation and ready to move on.

So rather than sensation, I found myself focused on something disturbing. Did you notice that our reading this morning of 2 Samuel was interrupted? We read from verses 1 through 5 and skipped the next section and began reading again at verse 12b. The lectionary committee who develops the Revised Common Lectionary that is used by most of the mainline denominations determines our readings. And for some reason this group has left out that section. Often times they do so because the reading is too long. Sometimes it is because the themes repeat themselves and no need to read it all. But this time, I suspect there is another reason. They have left out a very disturbing incident that happened in what is otherwise a very joyful celebration. Let me read it to you:

"And when they came to Nacon's threshing floor, Uzzah put out his hand to the ark of God and took hold of it, for the oxen stumbled and shook it. And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Uzzah; and God kill him there for touching the ark, and he died there by the ark of God.

David was afraid of the Lord that day and said, How can the ark of the Lord come to me? So David was not willing to take the ark of the Lord to him into the City of David; but he took it aside into the house of Obed-edom the Gittite. And the ark of the Lord remained in the house of Obed-edom the Gittite for three months, and the Lord blessed Obed-edom and all his household.

And it was told King David, The Lord has blessed the house of Obed-edom and all that belongs to him, because of the ark of God. So David went and brought up the ark of God from the house of Obed-edom into the City of David with rejoicing"

Some people are quick to tell me that they do not like the Old Testament because they find there so many disturbing images of God. Mark Twain said, “God so atrocious in the Old Testament, so attractive in the New Testament, the Jekyll and Hyde of sacred romance.” When you read this text, you have an idea of what people and Mark Twain mean.

Here is the background of our story: David has just made Jerusalem the capital of Israel and now it is time to make it not only the Political capital but also the Religious capital of the kingdom. He decides to take the Ark of the Covenant, from the city where it has been kept, to Jerusalem. You remember the Ark of the Covenant: it is a wood and gold covered box, which represented God’s Holy Presence and Power. David and his men load the Ark onto a new Ox Cart and make their way to Jerusalem singing and dancing in celebration. But along the way, one of the Oxen stumble and the Ark is tipped.

Instinctively, Uzzah, who has been traveling along side the Ark, reaches to hold up the Ark of God. It would seem to be the responsible thing to do, right? That is the prudent thing to do to protect the Ark, right? But for his actions we discover that Uzzah is smitten by the hand of God and instantly falls dead beside the Ark.

David is very upset at what has happened to Uzzah and in no uncertain terms let’s God know his anger. He is also not just a little scared and for about three months decides that he had better think twice before bring the Ark into the middle of his new capital city. But after the family who he leaves the Ark with is richly blessed, he again decides to bring the Ark into the city and that is where we have the scene of David dancing in joyful abandon.

But what about this little episode? Should we just forget what has happened and move on and join David at the party? Yet, how do you ignore what has happened? How can you be like David and party and dance when a man who seems to have been a dedicated servant of God has been slain at the hands of God?

You can imagine that scholars have struggled to resolve this difficulty for some time. Some want to just move on and not be distracted by this incident. Others talk about how this story was written in an ancient and more barbaric time and we should allow for this when we come to the scriptures. Some simply acknowledge the horror of what has happened and make a point to tell us “an encounter of the living God is a terrible thing.” I am sure, Uzzah, if he were with us, would not disagree with that interpretation.

Sometimes when you come across difficult text, rather than simply dismissing them, you are better off trying to discover what they still may have to teach us. I have found that some of the most disturbing texts are exactly the ones I have needed to listen to and try to understand. This is one of those stories. Even though this story rightfully disturbs us and will leave us with unanswered questions about God, if we listen to it we may be blessed by it.

Why in the world was someone who seems only to care about doing the right thing and rescuing the Ark of God be so condemned by the one he was attempting to help? The truth is Uzzah’s very impulsive, spontaneous action reveals something about Uzzah and his faith. As Thomas Long suggests, “a spontaneous gesture reveals a universe.”

One day I am out at North Park Shopping Mall waiting just outside of the Von Maur department store for Marla and Kira to finish shopping and not far from me are a group of young adult women who are shopping for some big event they are about to attend. They are showing off some of their finds when another in their group comes out of Von Maur in one of the most gaudy, awful dresses that amplifies what should not be amplified. But she is just so happy with what she has found. She spins around to show it off to the other women. One of young women blurted out, “YOU are NOT going to wear THAT are you?” All the chatter of the group comes to an abrupt halt. And the one who blurted out the word, covers her mouth, her face turns red and she says, “I am so sorry…I really did not mean it.”

Well, of course she meant it. Sometimes the first thing we say spontaneously reveals our truth. It tells a lot about who we are and how we really feel. As Thomas Long said it, “a spontaneous gesture reveals a universe.”

So what does the spontaneous gesture of Uzzah reveal about him? It reveals that Uzzah is someone who believes that God is One who he needs to be held up. It is probably very true that he is one who would have no trouble affirming, “I believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth,” but in that moment what he actual lives by in his life is made known. “It does not depend on God, it depends on me.” Uzzah is the one who mistakenly believes he has to “HOLD GOD UP!” In his mind he may affirm that God is strong and capable, but in his heart and in his life, God is weak and ineffectual. So rather than trusting that God is in control, Uzzah lives with the terrible burden that he always has to be in control – it literally all falls on him.

Instantly, in that moment when he felt he had to hold up the Ark of God, Uzzah falls to the ground dead. The scripture makes it clear that it is God who causes this. But in my imagination and in my spiritual reading of this text, I think about it being a heart attack. Because when you live as if everything depends on you, that you are holding up the world and even holding up God, you are a heart attack waiting to happen.

Too many of you live your lives like that. You feel the burden of great responsibilities. You think about life as a series of responsibilities where in the end it all falls to you. You have got to be hyper-vigilant! You never know when that ox is going to slip and the cart is going to fall and you have to be the one who is going to hold it all up.

• I know you. Some of you have jobs that carry heavy burdens.

• Some of you have the tremendous challenges of day in and day out 24 hours a day, 7 days a week of parenting.

• Some of you do all of this and have a loved one who is ill and needs your care and attention. The Ox Cart has to be held up!

But the question is: Is God God? Or are we trying to fill in and be in control where we suspect that God might just be a little weak? Or does your faith tell you otherwise. Does your faith tell you that there is a loving and powerful God active and alive in this world, one who does not need us carrying the burden of believing that it is all up to us? Do you live your life as a practicing atheist or do you live your life as one who trusts that in the mystery of our lives the Spirit of God is working and guiding and leading us forward?

I remember being appointed to my first church where I was the solo pastor. Shelby United Methodist church was a delightful group of primary older people. Most of my congregation was over 65 years of age – the only family in the church with children – came infrequently – often going to the larger Methodist church in the next larger town over. On a good Sunday we would have 60 people for worship. The church had not always been so small – at one time is was vibrant and alive with children and with youth and families of all ages, but the community changed as did the farm economy. Almost none of the young people came back to Shelby when they finished college. The town of about 1500 people was 80% African American and racial barriers were still very strong. The tiny downtown was dying and in the farm crisis of the 1980’s farms were in trouble everywhere.

I went to Shelby determined that we could find a way to grow and increase our membership. I carried this burden of believing that it was somehow my job to rescue this tiny, dying church and that is a heavy burden to carry. Frankly, it wasn’t even a burden the church really wanted me to carry – they were just happy to have me as their pastor and friend. It took me over a year to let down and discover that. It happened when my District Superintendent, a wise and loving pastor said to me one day: “Allen, it is not your church or even their church…it is God’s church. It is not your job to save this church – it is your job to love this church and help it be faithful. This church may die and it will be ok. Leave that up to God. What ever happens, God’s will achieve God’s purpose in this church.”

You do not have to hold up the Ark – God is God and we are simply the people of God. It is not all up to us. We do not have to be so in charge, God is in charge.

I believe King David understood that. It is why he continued to dance and why he danced so joyfully and freely with God. He knew the power of the Ark of God and the power of God with his people and with him. He understood that it was God who had brought them victory and God who had protected them. When you have faith and are not living with an overburdened sense of responsibility – you are free to dance – free to be filled with joy. When you really believe in God, you are light enough on your feet to dance. When you really trust in God, you no longer take yourself so very seriously – you become the person God created you to be. You become the joy that is your essence.

As for the Uzzah story, it still haunts me to think about his being smitten. But I know I am glad to believe in a God of power and strength rather than one who is so weak we have to hold him up. Amen.

Thomas G. Long, The Fall of the House of Ussah…and Other Difficult Preaching Text, including a sermon, “Just in Case,” Journal for Preachers, 7 no 1, Advent 1983, p. 13-19. I am indebted to Professor Long for the flow and major theme of this sermon.

Ibid.

Published: 7/12/2009 10:25 PM

Not to Condemn But to Save - John 3:1-17

Allen Mothershed — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 19:28:48 GMT

Body:

A woman in her SUV was in a really big hurry and was growing increasingly agitated at the truck in front of her. When he slowed down and did not run through a yellow light – even though he could have made it – she just lost it. Her hands were up in the air and she was shouting at him words we don’t say in church.

There just happen to be a police car right behind this woman’s car and he pulled her over, hand cuffed her and took her to the police station. After about an hour of holding the woman, he came in and said, “I’m releasing you. I am sorry there has been a misunderstanding. You see when I saw the ‘Jesus loves you and I do too’ sticker on your bumper and I saw the Christian fish symbol and then I saw you yelling and screaming at the car in front of you, I assumed this could not be a Christian driving that car -- so the car must have been stolen.”

Have you ever noticed how much condemnation there is in the world? You ever take note of how commonplace it is to quickly condemn other people? We live in a sea of condemnation.

• The driver in front of us who does not handle the car in the way we believe he should.

• The corporate leader who does not turn the company around.

• Turn on the news report 24 hours a day and hear of crime, judgment, and condemnation.

• Listen to the political talking heads – always ready to pounce on the mistake of political leaders they despise.

• Condemnation is entertainment – the comments of three panel judges on TV talent shows watched by millions. Think of the looks and smirks on the faces of the audience BEFORE Susan Boyle sang.

• An abortion doctor shot to death while ushering on Sunday at his church – shoot by a man who believes in “protecting life.”

There is condemnation alive and active in us.

• The mother who lives with the memory that her child was injured permanently while she was preoccupied with chores downstairs.

• A young man works hard and graduates from high school like the students we celebrate with today. He goes to college and has everything going for him – good looks, intelligence, friends, and a supportive family. He is happy on the face of things but for the words that constantly live in his mind: “I am not worthy --- I am not worthy.”

• Sometimes we wake up at night rehearsing the mistakes we made: “How could I have been so foolish!”

It is not so surprising that what some people have come to expect from their faith is more condemnation. So many people I have met over the years have told me of how condemning their religious upbringing was to their spirits. Grace may have been proclaimed but they never did get past the shaming and the guilt they experienced. What is the primary image that so many people have of God? The white haired old man up in the clouds looking down on us – trying to catch people in their sins.

Jesus understands this. He understands what we expect from God and what we have experienced in the world. And therefore Jesus says: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” That is the loving verse we are familiar with, but here is the next one that we often skip over: “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” “God did not send the Son into the world to condemn…” The apostle Paul says the same thing in another way: “There is therefore now NO CONDEMNATION for those in Christ Jesus, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the spirit.”

This is the gift of our faith: we can come out of darkness and trust we will not be condemned by God for who we are or what we have done. God sheds the light of Jesus on the world but the light is not a search party meant to hunt down some escaped criminal. It is the light of grace and truth.

The prologue to John’s gospel says, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth.” It does not say, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and condemnation!” Now truth is not easy, but it is not condemnation. Condemnation is being put down, being brought low. When you condemn someone you cease to have concern for them or even to see them as human beings. But truth is different. God sheds the light on the world that we may come to see the truth about our world and about ourselves and be transformed. Truth is very much concerned about justice, but also about the well being of another person. The purpose of truth is not to put down another person but to bring new life to that person.

I am thinking now of a friend, a good friend. Married to Gene whom she adored – some would say worshipped. One day she comes home and he has just up and gone. His side of the closet is empty as if nothing were ever there. Back in the kitchen a note – a cryptic note that needs a lifetime to decipher.

Dear Sara, I just cannot take it anymore. Sorry, Gene

Take what? The adoration, the love and devotion I have given you? Take what? The gourmet meals I cooked, the loads of clothes I washed for you. Take what? My family’s wealth you shared in. The grace and the devotion I showed you when you stayed out those late nights without a call? Sorry? Sorry! What do you mean ‘sorry?”

What was at first bewilderment and disbelief became surging pain and despair and it did not take very long before that turn into hatred and condemnation. At some level you can understand. A long litany of injustice she has experienced at the hand of an ungrateful soul for all her goodness now runs through her mind like a run away freight train on an endless loop. She cycles through the ears of friends who are sympathetic, but who all grow weary of the endless list of condemnations leveled at a man they all knew was imperfect long before she had.

There is so little self-reflection on her part. So little of that bright light of truth is reflected on herself as she attempts to make sense of that brutally simple note.

She has a dream one night – a disturbing dream. It is amazing that when God cannot get to us the direct way God finds the indirect way. It is night. She is with her husband and very angry. She locks him in a trunk. For some reason he willing complies. She tosses him over a bridge into the water. But it is not he who starts to lose his breath. She loses her breath, as if she were in that suitcase. She is gasping! She is so confined! She wakes up breathing freely again and bewildered by what she has just experienced.

For the first time she starts to realize that in her marriage she so desperately needed to idolize him and look up to him that she tried to manage every aspect of his life and never value and trust him for who he was. She became aware of how little she really appreciated him as a human being apart from herself. It was not condemnation that she now felt towards herself but the grace and the truth that began to set her free to live and begin a new life.

“Indeed, God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world but that the world might be saved through him.” And what of you? The light of Christ is being shown on us all. It is not a light to condemn but to save.

Rev. Allen Mothershed, First Congregational Church, Moline, June 7, 2009

Published: 7/7/2009 9:55 PM

Myth and Reality 2 Samuel 5:1-10

Allen Mothershed — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 19:46:12 GMT

Body:

Well it did not take a day in Jonestown for the news to spread about what my cousin Frank had done. It was almost unbelievable what Frank had done. But there was the evidence – all spread out in the back of Frank’s pickup truck just outside the Post Office. There were about two hundred fish, which Frank proudly said he had caught out on the little pond out on his farm. “I am exhausted! They were taking my hook as fast as I could get it back out there.” Pretty soon everybody was talking about what an amazing fisherman Frank must be.

Everybody but his wife, Jean. “Frank! There is no way on God’s green earth you caught all those fish! You and I know you cannot catch a fish on a catfish farm on a good day. Now I want to know what REALLY happened.”

Well, I did catch my fish – sort of. I was out there on my tractor and I accidentally hit that power pole and knocked it down with the wire in the pond. There was a big zap and sparks flew everywhere and the next thing I knew, all the fish in that pond were rising to the top! I pulled that wire out and went in there and I CAUGHT those fish with my net.”

There is myth and there is reality. There are our ideals and there is also the truth about who we really are.

In our Hebrew reading today, we are invited to attend a coronation ceremony. David becomes king of Israel. It is a high moment in Israel’s history. It is the time Israel would look back upon as the moment when God gave them their greatest king. And just a few verses later we are told how David captured the city of Jerusalem and made it the capital of Israel. For centuries to come, Jerusalem would become the symbol of all Israel’s longings. “Jerusalem, if I forget you, let my right hand go limp. Let my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth, if I don't think about you above all else.” Jerusalem and King David became for the people that ideal time with an ideal ruler when God’s presence was fully with Israel and there was peace and prosperity and security.

As Christians we also use the ideal image of King David and Jerusalem as a metaphor of all we hope for. Jesus is the Son of David. Why? Because David was the greatest king of Israel and Jesus fulfills all the hopes of the return of the glory day when David was king. In the book of Revelation, we long for the day when, “I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain, for the former things are passed away.”

But there is myth and there is reality. There is the ideal and there is also the truth about who we really are. Nowhere is this more evident than in the books of First and Second Samuel. The editor of these ancient books has taken two very different portraits of David and combined them into one story. He has taken two at variant traditions about David and edited them into one story. These two traditions could not be more different. In one, David’s rise to power is a smooth, seamless transition of a shepherd boy into a mighty, just and righteous king. In this tradition, David can do no wrong. He defeats Goliath through a purity of faith. He overcomes his enemies and treats them with benevolence and grace. There are no moral problems facing David or about him. He makes no bad choices and God seems at every turn to bless him in his rise to power.

But in the other tradition, David has not been knighted as a saint in shining armor. He is real and his rise to power is slow, bloody, and fraught with moral difficulties. He surrounds himself not only with good men, but violent and evil men. At times he abhors violence and at other times he has blood on his hands. In this version, David’s world seems confused, as contradictory, dangerous, and violent as our own world. In this version, David is a more complex man, even as our own leaders are all more complex than we sometimes like to believe.

The most amazing revelation about all of this, is that the writer of Samuel – the man who edited these two traditions into one - apparently felt that we need both – both the ideal version of history and the reality.

We need our myths. Our myths contain nuggets of truth about us. They express the ideal version of where we have come from and who we are. They are important because our myths hold up our highest ideals and invite us to aspire to them. Without them we have no vision of what is possible. With them, we have a sense of our identity and our deepest values.

But we also need the hard reality. Our myths can be very dangerous when we allow them to conceal the complete truth about who we are. We caught a lot of fish, but maybe we did not reel them in the way we always say we did. We can be so lost in the ideal version of our history that forget or minimize the very difficult and imperfect path we followed to get where we are.

On this Fourth of July weekend, we take time to celebrate the great ideals on which our nation was founded. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. We feel such pride when we read these words. We stand tall as Americans when we realize that our nation is built on laws in which the majority rule, but the minority retain certain rights that cannot be denied them. We sing our national anthem and remember that glorious night when bombs where bursting in the air but in the morning our flag was still there. We remember with thanksgiving the sacrifice men and women have made – paying the ultimate price for our nation and its highest ideals. Justifiably we feel so much pride to be Americans.

These are our highest ideal – based upon the amazing truths of our nation and its founding. They hold before us what we in some ways are and what we also still aspire to be. Without them we would be lost and greatly diminished.

But we also know that the path to where we are is more. As with the story of King David, our founding and our history has been fraught with contradictions, dangers, and violence. Only over time have we struggled to make sure the rights of all people are respected: former slaves, Native Americans, and women. We know there are times in our history when we have sought our own prosperity – but at great expense to the prosperity of other nations and people. There remains today vast gaps between the haves and the have nots.

I remember taking the required class in Mississippi history when I was in 9th grade. He was a white man who loved his state but who had an ideal view of our state’s history. When it came time to teach about the civil rights struggle, he only spent 30 minutes and glossed over the atrocities that were committed. No wonder the blacks in my school despised the class and complained about the teacher. He acknowledged only the myth and denied the hard truth. We need our ideals as a nation, but we must never let that overshadow the reality of our struggle.

What is true in our nation is also true in our families.

Several years ago, I attended a funeral of the mother of one of my church members. A friend of the family got up to eulogizes the elderly woman who had died after a long battle with cancer. She went on about what a wonderful friend she had been, how much she loved to play bridge, her many trips abroad, and most of all what a wonderful human being she was and how much she loved her family.

I looked over at the daughter – who the whole time this woman was speaking – was so distraught. I wondered how she was hearing what was being said about her mother who I knew did not completely fit the description being given. Then the pastor emeritus of that church stood up to give his eulogy. He said, “In all honesty, Betty was a difficult woman who in many ways made life difficult and painful for her daughter.”

I looked over to the daughter. She was still crying, but now more relaxed as if the burden was being taken off her back with each of the pastor’s honest words. He continued, “Betty was difficult – but if we understand her own upbringing and enormous challenges presented by the great losses early in her life we find reason for understanding and compassion for her.” It was one of the most brave, honest, and graceful eulogies I have ever heard. It both honored the good myths of that family but refused to let the healing truth be ignored.

Everyone here has their myths and their realities, their ideals and their struggles – every nation, every church, every family, every individual. The books of Samuel would tell us that we need both the myths and the realities. God knows we need our ideals to which we aspire, as we also need to be grounded in the reality of our honest struggles.

The good news is that God is with us not only when we live up to our ideals, but when we as nations, families, and individuals contend with the imperfections and the messiness of living in the real world. God is in the messiness of our lives – even as God was in the messiness of David’s life. It is only when we face the difficulties and this messiness of our lives that God meets us with the grace to move closer to our ideals. It is the truth and the grace that sets us free.

Rev. Allen Mothershed, First Congregational Church, Moline, July 5, 2009

Published: 7/5/2009 9:29 PM

Defining Moment

Allen Mothershed — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 23:20:07 GMT

Body:

Introduction: Defining Moments

In each of our lives there are moments – both positive and negative – that have defined who we are. You never forget them – they remain with you for the rest of your life. You can look back at them and know – this was the point when life might have gone one way or another. You made a decision – for good or for bad – that has affected the rest of your life.

Story #1 – Guitar or Gun?

He’s name is Forrest Bobo and he worked in a hardware store that is still owned by members of a church I once served in Mississippi. One Saturday afternoon a mother and a little boy who was about 11 years old came in to buy his Christmas gift for that year. He has decided he wants to buy a 22-caliber rifle but his mother is not exited by the idea and has decided that a guitar would be a better gifts. Forrest hands the guitar to the boy, which the he plays with for some time.

They are very poor people. The guitar is $7.75 plus 2% sales tax, which is more than the little boy has been able to save up working small jobs for neighbors. Finally his mother says, “Son, I will make up the difference if you take the guitar instead of the rifle.” No one would have ever known it – but the purchase of that $7.75 guitar would stir up a racket that would last for decades. And that 11 year old boy? His name is Elvis Presley, of course, and that guitar he purchased Christmas time, 1946 was a defiing moment when Elvis started down the road to be Elvis. But it could have turned out differently.

Story #2 – Meeting Marla

A friend calls me up and says he is going to a party at the home of a woman friend of his at church. He wants to know if I want to join him. The place is just packed full of people – crammed in the tiny garden apartment and flowing out into a nice courtyard. We walk back to the kitchen and there stands a beautiful petite woman in an attractive sundress. She is busy talking to other friends. My friend tells me this is her condo and then introduces me to her. She says “hi – glad you are here” the drinks are outside. And that is the end of our conversation.

Three years go by. The same friend calls me up again and asks if I want to go to another party with him at someone's house. I have nothing better to do and find myself in a room with no one I know. But there she is again and my heart skips up beat as I get up the nerve to strike up a conversation – which to my surprise and delight goes remarkable well. She has a camera with her and I take the camera and we put our heads next to each other and I snap the shot. About two weeks later I get a letter on hotel stationary that has been mailed from England with that picture in it and a little note and a phone number, signed Marla Beck. The rest is history. It was a defining moment – a moment that might not have happened but because it did, I found the love of my life and now have the joy of two children that I would not have had – had it not been for that moment.

Your Life?

Think about your own life – what were those times – those events that forever have affected the course of your life?

Scripture: A Defining Moment for Jesus and the Disciples

You may not have noticed it – but our Gospel reading in Mark is a defining moment in the life of Jesus and the disciples.

“Who Do People Say that I Am?”

This moment begins when one day Jesus ask his disciples a very simple question: “Who do people say that I am?” “You know what everyone is saying about me – now tell me what you hear.” And they say, “Some say you are John the Baptist come back alive again. Some say you are the return of the great prophet Elijah. Others say you are one of the other great prophets come back alive.”

“Who Do You Say that I Am?”

Ok, that is fine and good, “but who do you say that I am?” (pause) It is time to make a decision – it is time for each of you to define who I am and to understand what I am about. And Peter speaks up. Now when ever you hear Peter talked about in the bible – you do well to recognize that it now is actually a code word. It is not just Peter who is about to speak but any of us in the church who claim to follow Peter. And Peter takes a deep breath and says it: “You are the Christ, the Messiah” – the one we have all been waiting for all these generations.

“The Son of Man Must Suffer Many Things…”

But it is not enough to know that Jesus is the Messiah, the son of God. You must also know what sort of Messiah Jesus is. And so Jesus begins to tell them something that is very, very hard for them to hear: the Son of Man must suffer many things, be rejected and finally be crucified. And Peter (remember – he is speaking for the church) – Peter rebuked Jesus: “God forbid that this ever happen to you!” And Jesus says to Peter, “Get behind me Satan! For you are not on the side of God but the side of people!”

Allusion: “It is time for you to grow up!”

I have a friend who was going to a spiritual director for sometime and one day she was going on and on about this and that – describing the same old issues and the spiritual director is sitting across the room listening and there is this long silence and she says, “Teresa, it is time for you to grow up!” It was a defining moment.

Time to Grow Up!

In the same way, Jesus is saying to Peter, to the disciples, to all of us – it is time to grow up. This may not look like it – but it is one of the more loving moments in the gospels – Jesus cares enough for his disciples to level with them and tries to help them understand exactly what they are getting themselves into. He wants them AND us to know exactly what the cost are to following him.

• Following Jesus is not just about having a good, safe environment where people’s needs are met! It is about living in such a different way in this world, that there might actually be people who will reject you – even kill you for it.

• This way of life is not just about being loved and cared for, it is about growing up and daring to live your life in a way that will truly make a difference.

• It is about living a life of consequence – a life that is not always easy – but one that matters.

The Scripture: “If anyone would follow after me, let him deny himself”

“If anyone would follow after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and come and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, and who ever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s sake will gain his life.” Jesus creates a defining moment for his disciples.

A Life that Matters

The Lenten Journey is an invitation to recognize a defining moment…

In this Lenten season we are given an invitation to recognize that this could be a defining moment in our lives. When the Jesus challenges us to pick up our crosses and follow him, when he tells us that losing our life is the way we gain it, he is asking us to consider what we are living our lives for. We all receive one chance to live this life – ONE CHANCE – is what we are living our lives for worth of that one chance? What is it we need to let go of? What do we need to do in order to fully live?

A Life Worth Living = a Life Worth Giving

Jesus says that the life worth living is defined by a life worth giving. It is only in the giving of ourselves that we discover the joy of gaining a life that is worth living. It is not in holding back – living in a protective, guarded way that brings life – It is in the act of sharing, reaching out, letting go with others that life is gained.

Illustration: Grocery Story Clerk

The writer Frederick Buechner and his wife were in the grocery story shopping together. He was on one side of he store and she was on the other, and over a shelf of breakfast cereal and cake mix he said, “Don’t forget the ice cream,” and she said, “All right, but don’t you forget you’re trying to lose weight,” and he said, “Oh well, you only live once.” And then it happened – one of those moments you might miss on any other day but on this day – Fredrick Buechner heard it. The store was nearly empty so that the woman at the checkout counter had no trouble hearing their conversation. It was a hot, muggy afternoon, and she had been working hard all day and looked flushed and hectic there behind her cash register and the racks of Life Savers, chewing gum and TV guides. When he said, “Oh, well, you only live once,” she broke into their conversation, and said, “Don’t you think once is enough?” That was it.

It was mildly funny and he laughed a bit and so did the boy carrying up some empty cartoons from the cellar, but it was not just a jest because Fredrick had a feeling that what by some rare chance he had happened to hear a human being say, she was just surviving – enduring this life – making the best just to get through it.

Killing Time – Getting By

This world is full of people who in one way or another are merely “getting through their lives,” they are “killing time.” A horrible phrase isn’t it? “Killing time,” because it is your own time you are killing and you have only so little time in this life. We only have one life to live – one life to do something with. When Jesus tells us to pick up our crosses and follow him – when he invites us to deny ourselves that we may gain life – he is inviting us to do something other than “get through” or “kill time.” We are being invited to decide what we are willing to die for – or to say it another way: what is it worth living our lives for so much that we would be willing to die for it. Jesus’ words are a gracious invitation to meaningful life.

Millard Fuller: A Life Lived Well

I had the good fortune of getting to know someone famous once. A native of Alabama he rose from humble beginnings to become a young, self-made millionaire. He and a college friend began a marketing firm while still in school, “but as his business prospered, his health, integrity and marriage suffered.” All this caused him to re-evaluate his values and direction. It was – a defining moment. He was reconciled to his wife and renewed his commitment to follow Christ.

They sold all their possessions, gave money to the poor and began searching for a new direction. They founded Koinonia Farm, a Christian community near Americus, Ga. Together with others they founded a new ministry that built modest homes on a no-interest, nonprofit basis and made them affordable to low-income families. Over 1.5 million people in over 3000 communities have decent housing because of a defining moment in this man's life.

And the name of the person whose defining moment change the world: Millard Fuller and Habitat for Humanity. It all began with a decisive moment in his and his wife’s life.

Millard died on February 3 of this year. But I wonder – does anyone here think he had any regrets? His was a life worth living.

Other Ways of a Life Worth Living

In so many small ways, quite, unnoticed ways, people respond to the call of Christ to follow him and discover a “life worth living.”

• The neighbor who with out fail goes over to the elderly next-door neighbor first thing in the morning and then at night to be sure she is doing well.

• The sister who uses her vacation time to travel across the country every weekend to see her younger brother who is going through painful chemo and has no one to be with her.

• The family who sacrifices useful monthly income to support a poor child and her family in Guatemala because they know just how blessed they are and cannot stand the fact that there is a child anywhere in this world who goes with out.

You really have a choice on how you are going to use this short life you have been given. You can just make it through – looking after yourself and your kind. Or you can hear the call of Christ to come and follow – to die to self – but to gain a real life. And if you can hear that call – this is your defining moment.

Rev. Allen Mothershed, First Congregational Church, Moline, March 8, 2009

Frederick Buechner, The Hungering Dark, The Killing of Time, p. 71-72.

Ibid, p. 73.

CNN.com, “Habitat for Humanities Founder Dies,” February 3, 2009.

Published: 3/7/2009 5:14 PM

Real Temptation - Mark 1:9-15

Allen Mothershed — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 21:04:49 GMT

Body:

Introduction: Temptation
Temptation
When I say the word “Temptation” what is the first thing that comes to mind? I asked that question to several people this week and one person was really silent and I said, “don’t think so long – give me your first thought. She said, “I am afraid to tell you what my first thought was – I am afraid you are going to tell me I have to give it up for Lent.”
“Stool of Repentance” I discovered this week that back in the 1600 in Scotland that the Presbyterian church had a certain kind of chair that sat near the front of the sanctuary (like the one I have here). The chair was known as a “Stool of Repentance.” The idea was if you had succumbed to some sort of temptation, you would be brought into the church – usually on a communion Sunday - and made to sit on that stool. You would sit on that stool through out the worship service. Then sometime after the sermon – and back then sermons lasted about an hour – you would be given the opportunity to speak to the congregation and let the church members know just how sorry you were for your succumbing to your temptation. Then the congregation would take a vote and see if they felt your confession was sincere or not. If it were, then you would be welcomed back into the congregation and then would receive communion.
Should We Try that Out? Well does anyone here think we should try this out? Now there is an idea for worship renewal! Just think how much worship attendance might increase on the Sundays someone was in that chair – depending, of course, on who is in the seat – and what they were confessing. Or it might be very small. “Don’t go to that church…they take their religious much too seriously.”
The Meaning of Temptation
Trivial Temptation: Desert
There was obviously a time in the church where it took temptation and sins very seriously. In fact, the early church from the time of the Apostle Paul to about the 5th century, understood that every day we faced a series of temptations to pull away from the faith – to cease to walk the journey with Christ. The further along the faith journey you are – more you grown in your faith – the greater the temptation: small temptations for small people; great temptations for spiritually great people. The struggle for them did not end until death, which was not only an end of life but a graceful end of temptation.
We often trivialize the idea of temptation and I suspect do not give it much thought. You know I mean. She goes out to dinner with her friends and she is determined to eat healthy. When the salads come to the table, hers is just lettuce and tomatoes and a little bit of salad oil and vinegar. When the plate arrives it’s a small dry piece of chicken, broccoli and a lot of rice, half of which she takes off and put on a plate and give to her friend. The waitress comes over, as they are finishing dinner, carrying one of those trays filled with luscious looking delicacy and says those dread words for anyone on a diet: “How about some desert!” “I will have the lemon tart.” “I have the chocolate fudge cake.” “What about you? How about the pralines and ice cream?” “Oh, go ahead (the others say to her)…it’s just one time…besides…what every happened to having a good time.”
Temptation #2 – Friend Keeping the Books
Is that what temptation is? Or is it something more than that? A friend was keeping the books at a midsize firm in Chicago. He likes his job and he is making a good living for his family. But one day her comes across some major discrepancies in the books and the only way he can account for them is that his boss his skimming money from the firm. After a serious of painful, scary, and difficult conversations, his boss breaks down crying and confessing that he has taken the money for some good reason and he is going to pay it back if only he will not tell anyone and help him cover it all up. “Well, he is sincere. I can help him out and no one is going to be harmed. What should I do?” The temptation is more serious now isn’t it?
Temptation #3 – “Just One Hit”
The family is away and he finally has an afternoon to himself. He has been clean for over a year now and the conflict has lessen a bit between his wife and him. But work has become incredibly stressful --- he finds himself more on edge – struggling to get through his day. An old friend drives by while he is out in the yard and says, “hey, I have something for you – ole buddy.” He hands him a small sack and as he drives away he says, “this one is on me!” He stands there now thinking to himself: “what one good hit would do to help him feel better. He can go into the garage – close the door - and no one will ever know and besides it will be just this one time.” Now we are in very serious temptation, aren’t we?
Temptations #4 – IRS – Insurance Companies I do not know anyone who would go into a neighbor’s house and steal their new flat screen TV, but there are plenty of people who will hide away a stash of cash from the IRS. I do not know anyone who will go into a grocery mart and hold it up at gunpoint, but there are plenty of people who will change the story so the insurance claim becomes viable. They will all think: “no one is hurt – it is a little extra money for the family – I’ve pay in plenty to that insurance company.” Now we are into temptation, aren’t we?
The Temptation of Jesus: Real Temptation
Cartoon Temptation
But do you really want to see temptation? You want to see someone who was really put on the hot seat and who had to make a difficult decision? Then look at the story of the temptation of Jesus. Fred Craddock says that the temptation story almost appears to us like a cartoon. I have a painting in my office of the temptation of Jesus that is like that – it is a cartoon of the temptation story. Stand opposite of Jesus is a horrific blazing red figure with fire coming out of his fingertips. Now tell me something – if you had someone looking like that coming to tempt you would you be fooled by him? You may be intimidated and scared and run the other way. I doubt you would be tempted.
Real Temptation: Tempted to do something good
Real temptation is not a cartoon. Temptation comes in the form of the possibility of something that seems to be a real good. In all the stories I have shared with you, each of the people were tempted by something that rationally seems good: who doesn’t want to let go and have a good time? Why not help out a friend who made a tragic mistake? Who does not need to find a way to reduce stress? What is wrong with thinking about a little extra money for the family?
The Nature of Jesus’ Temptations:
Mark’s gospel does not tell us any of the details of Jesus’ temptation. We have only two lines telling us that he was tempted. Matthew fills in the gaps of what Mark does not tell us.
• Matthew says, Jesus fasted for 40 days and was out in the wilderness when he was tempted to turn a stone into bread. Now what could be wrong with that? He is just making sure he is feed so he does not starve.
• He is then tempted to throw himself down from the top of the temple and told the angels will rescue him. Now what is wrong with that? Wouldn’t so many people come to believe in him if they could just see that happen?
• He taken to a mountaintop and told to look at all the kingdoms of the world and promised that he could rule all of them? Doesn’t that sound like a good thing? Would it be great to have Jesus take charge of everything? There would be more fairness and justice and love in our world. Think how much good he could do.
Summary
Jesus is approached and tempted at the point of doing what is reasonable, what is helpful, what is good. The temptation is not about going out and doing something bad but the temptation to do something good. It is always that way or else, we would never succumb.
Overcoming Temptation
Remembering Your Call
So how does Jesus overcome the tremendous temptations put on him? Jesus remembers who he is and what his call is. He stays with what he understands God’s will is for his life. Temptation is ultimately not about the temptation to eat some pie, to tell a lie, to fudge on our taxes – it is deeper than that. True temptation is to forget who we are – the temptation to betray our call to follow Jesus. Jesus remembers his baptism – he remembers God’s blessing of him and his call.
Illustration: Peter
Let me illustrate that from you from a story in the gospels. You remember when Peter was outside the High Priest house – Jesus has been arrested and put on trial and Peter is gathered around a fire to warm him. “You were with Jesus of Nazareth weren’t you?” Peter is tempted. And three times Peter fails that temptation and denies Jesus, his friend. What was Peter’s failure? That he told a lie to a hostile person and saved his own neck and avoided his own crucifixion? That is not a bad thing to do – it is a good thing to do. No – his failure was that Peter betrayed his call to be Jesus’ follower and friend. That was his call and failed his temptation to keep it even at a high cost.
Our True Temptations
That is what we do – when we succumb to true temptations: We allow something put in front of us – to take us away from who we really are and are called to be. When we are tempted we need to ask ourselves two questions: “What kind of person will I become if I do this? And second: “What kind of person will I give up being?” And also, “If by doing this or by doing that, am I moving away or towards God good intentions for my life?”
Illustration: My Temptation
I remember once being tempted by something real good. It was the offer of a job. I was going to be paid an enormous amount of money at a time when I was in real debt from student loans. I was going to be able to work with a good friend. I was going to be home closer to my family. What is wrong with any of that? I tell you what is wrong – it meant going against a clear sense that would take me away from a more difficult path I was being called down to travel. When you have that – no matter how good the temptation – you follow Christ – you follow Christ.
Summary: Lenten Journey – Called to follow Jesus on the road to the cross…
This week we have begun our Lenten journey with one another. We are called to follow Christ on the way to the cross and each of us has a unique call and purpose. That call came to you in the time you were baptized – when God spoke to you the word that were spoken to Jesus: “You are my son, my daughter, the beloved, with whom I am well please.” You like Jesus, then began a journey towards God and a larger purpose for your life.
What is Temptation? It is anything that takes us off our journey with Christ.
Do we need a “Stool of Repentance?” Do we need a way of shaming people into never again succumbing to temptations? No – what we need is to remember that God defines and blesses and gives our lives meaning. We remember who we are and get on that road with Christ again – no matter how far off we have strayed. For walking with Jesus is the path to life. Amen.
Fred Craddock, Cherry Log Sermons, “Tempted to Do Good,” p. 16. Some of the stories ideas and shape of this sermon come from this sermon by Dr. Craddock.
Ibid, p. 17.
Ibid, p. 17.

Published: 3/4/2009 2:51 PM

Work and Play as Worship

Allen Mothershed — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 17:09:54 GMT

Body:
The American investment banker was at the pier of a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large yellow fin tuna. The American complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them. The American then asked why didn't he stay out longer and catch more fish?
The Mexican said he had enough to support his family's immediate needs.
The American then asked, "but what do you do with the rest of your time?"
The Mexican fisherman said, "I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take siesta with my wife, Maria, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos, I have a full and busy life."
The American scoffed, "I am a Harvard MBA and could help you. You should spend more time fishing and with the proceeds, buy a bigger boat with the proceeds from the bigger boat you could buy several boats, eventually you would have a fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to a middleman you would sell directly to the processor, eventually opening your own cannery. You would control the product, processing and distribution. You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City, then LA and eventually NYC where you will run your expanding enterprise."
The Mexican fisherman asked, "But, how long will this all take?"
To which the American replied, "15-20 years." "But what then?"
The American laughed and said that's the best part. "When the time is right you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich, you would make millions."
"Millions.. Then what?"
The American said, "Then you would retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take siesta with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos."
(Source: Jimmy John’s Restaurant poster) I came across this while having lunch one day at a Jimmy John’s restaurant. It was posted on a sign at the table where I was sitting. It’s a nicely done critique of how culturally condescending we can be with people with a very different value system.
I suspect different people who read this have very different reactions. Do you find yourself wanting a life more like the Mexican fisherman? Do you find yourself more identified with the American businessman and his values of hard work and advancement?
They are different values systems and there is nothing to say that either is wrong. The interplay and all the judgments between these two people are what are interesting.
I suspect most people want more balance in their lives than they presently have – that is often true for myself as well. Yesterday - in a sermon – I explored what the scriptures have to offer us in finding balance between our work and our play.
The biblical world reflects a very different cultural and economic world than our own – so it can be difficult to understand. People in Jesus day were much more relational oriented and interdependent than we are – they had to be to survive. They depended upon family and social networks more than we do. Life was also hard and work was not leisurely but for survival. There were no retirement plans or social security or 40 hour work weeks and 2 week vacation periods – much less 4 week vacations.
Yet the scriptures do offer instruction for how we in modern times can find balance – no matter our cultural bias. Here are the three points I made from our scripture of the day Mark 1:29-39 a story where Jesus heals – goes to the wilderness to pray – and then returns to work ready to continuing healing and proclaiming the Good News.
• Maintain a rhythm in your life of meaningful work and Sabbath taking. Sabbath is the longest of the 10 commandments and it is concern not only with our resting but also our appreciating the beauty of creation and taking time to simply have pleasure. Pleasure is a gift of God and when we rest and take pleasure we fulfill a commandment of God and honor God. When we appreciate God’s gifts through having pleasure we worship God.
• In the story in Mark – Jesus goes into the desert – a place of temptation and the demonic in order to be with God. There he remembers “who he is” and “what his purpose is.” Many of us do not have fulfillment in our work and we burn out because we either do not have a sense of what we do is tied to a spiritual vocation (we are working with God in our work life for some common good) OR we allow ourselves to do task that are not apart of our called (we fail to say ‘no’ to that which is not our call). Yesterday I said, “Not ever demand on us is a call.”
• “You are not indispensable.” Yes, you are immensely important and you have a unique purpose in this world – but you are not indispensable. Only God is indispensable. Understanding this frees us from ever having to feel like it is all up to us. The world functioned before you came on board and it will function when you get off. While Jesus is indispensable to us – he is Savior and Lord – he did not understand himself to be indispensable – but went out to the desert to remember that is was in the end not about him – but about God. That is why he would “let go” into the hands of the forces of evil and be able to trust that God would vindicate him and his work. He was a Messiah without a Messiah complex.
Whether we have a slow life style or are driven workaholics – both work and play are gifts of God and acts of worshipping God. Life is worship.

Published: 2/9/2009 11:02 AM

False Witness

Allen Mothershed — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 22:03:20 GMT

Body:
The other day I received an email from a friend of mine who sent me a political article which made what I would call "wild claims" about one of the political candidates. He thought it was funny and worthy of making an "all mail" send out with a request to pass it on to others. Some emailed back their approving remarks: "finally someone says it!" one of them reads. I got the humor but did not laugh. I knew the claims were simply false. Truth is, I am tired of politics in our country being treated as a game and the divisiveness, based - not in truth - but the desire to slam dunk the other side with absolute falsehood or half-twisted truth. This past Sunday in the sermon, I mentioned the Ten Commandments and in particular the one against "bearing false witness against the neighbor." The commandments were given to provide a base level of civility necessary to make a loving and vibrant community possible. And one of these commandments says we should not speak of others in ways we know to be false. Both of our major political candidates claim a Christian faith. In light of that, it seems to me they and those who running their campaign would do well to reread this commandment. If we are going to be a nation - a national community - we would do well to attend to that which makes community possible. And that means refusing to participate in what we know to be false or suspect to be false - even when it might bring us pleasure. We are all safer and better off when we remain in the truth.

Published: 10/28/2008 4:42 PM

Sexual Purity Codes for Teens: What??

Allen Mothershed — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 22:12:31 GMT

Body:
I am willing to bet all parents at sometime become anxious when they start to think about their children and sex. There is so much confusion out there with what to teach our children in a culture where sex before marriage is not just the norm, but starting much sooner than in earlier generations. Some of you may have heard of the “Sexual Purity Movement” that host Father/Daughter parties where young women make pledges to remain sexual pure by signing pledges and wearing a ring as a reminder of that pledge. The focus is on abstinence, on building support for waiting till marriage. The program recognized that it is not realistic in our lax sexual culture to expect young people to remain sexually abstinent without a community of support. These programs aim to offer youth clear boundaries and rules as well as the permission to “just say no.” But you may wonder “how realistic” such an approach is. Two research facts stand out. On the positive side, youth with an active faith background do engage in sexual intercourse less often than their secular counterparts. But the other fact is that over 88% of virginity pledges are broken and those youth who have taken such pledges have a lower use of birth control than those who have not participated in such programs. Most abstinence programs believe it is a contradiction to teach abstinence along with methods of birth control. Something is missing here. It is not that there is anything wrong with the idea of abstinence. The idea of sexual abstinence may be powerful one when understood as a spiritual discipline, one path of learning the meaning of fidelity and committed love that is reflective of God’s faithful love. The problem with a central focus on abstinence is that they promote “just saying no” without encouraging moral decision making or helping teens to wrestle with why abstinence is a good choice for them. Outward rules cannot take the place of developing an inward moral compass that is guided by authentic inner sense of what is good and helpful. Our job is not simply telling the rules, but helping young people own their own moral convictions. I’d also add, that the effect of many abstinence programs is that, rather than develop a healthy appreciation of the goodness of sex, sex becomes something that causes shame, guilt, and fear. One writer says the problem with this approach is that, teens are taught “Sexuality is dangerous, powerful, and overwhelming; but when you get married it will be perfect.” What kind of preparation is that? There is a bigger task that young people need to undertake – that they need our help with. Our young people need to understand how to develop healthy, respectful, life-giving relationship and distinguish that from hurtful and destructive ones. Teenagers need to experience romantic relationships, practice setting positive limits for sexual intimacy, and come to terms with what it means to have a respectful relationship. They need to learn how to communicate in relationship and how to have the self-worth to go through letting relationships go when they are not right. They needed to gain clarity in what sort of person they might want to eventually marry (should marriage be the path they chose.) They need to understand that sexual expression is just part of being in a relationship and that it is deeply connected to our emotions and sense of our self. There are consequences to being sexually active. All people need to understand what they are getting themselves into – if they make that choice. I believe that the reason is that 88% of virginity pledges fail is that we do not understand the larger developmental needs I am describing here. It is the ministry of the church and Christian families to teach our children and youth how to live and develop healthy relationship based on the values of Christ. At some point this year, I’d like to have an evening with parents who struggle with the concerns I have raised here. My hope is that we can think through the Biblical understanding and gain clarity about how we can best support our children and youth as a church and as parents. I hope to hear from those of you who would find this helpful and welcome dialogue on this blog. Peace, Pastor Allen “Sexual Purity Codes for Teen: What,” Dr. Kate M. Ott, www.TheThoughfulChristian.com. I credit this quote and many ideas for the article from this adult education article and lesson plan.

Published: 8/28/2008 5:11 PM

What Is Yours Like?

Allen Mothershed — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 20:58:30 GMT

Body:
What is yours like? That is a game I played one night at a creative worship service one Sunday evening. One person leaves the room while the rest of the people are given the name of a common item that everyone has. The person who left the room comes back in and has to guess what the item is by asking each person the one allowed question, "What is yours like?" The item being guessed might be a "shoe," or maybe "bedroom," or something else. The game gets interesting as each person says what her "shoe" is like or his "bedroom" is like, etc. The presenter went through several rounds that night with different items (the most interesting was "toilet") but then he gave the final word, he said, "faith." Everyone scrambled to think about what their faith was like so each one could be ready for the person coming back in the room. When asked by the person attempting to guess the clues, the answers were varied, "strong" one said, another said, "waning." Yet another said, "very young," "in Jesus" said another. If I asked you that question, "What is yours like?" meaning your faith, how would you respond?

Published: 8/12/2008 3:44 PM

Separating Wheat and Weeds

Allen Mothershed — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 19:40:20 GMT

Body:
In last week's sermon, I did a lot of talking about the challenge of Jesus to not separate the wheat of the world from the weeds. I said followers of Jesus have very clear instructions not to do as the world does and attempt to pull the "weeds" out of the garden, be that garden the world, the church, or our families. It is more of a radical statement than many may think and a challenging one that raises questions for all of us. Does this mean we should not put people in prison? Does it mean we do not go after terrorist in the world who would do us harm? Does it mean we put up with all kinds of behavior of people in the church or in our lives? Sermons are difficult places to trying and work out all the challenging implications of what the scripture has to teach us. So I raise those questions here and hope to hear responses from those who read this. I'd add this. We do sometimes have to take steps to protect the common good and that means taking steps to prevent people from doing harm. That may include prisons. It may include drawing good boundaries in our personal life with people who are destructive. It may include trying to bring terrorist to justice. I believe the larger issue is that we live with the illusion that we can so easily weed the garden of weeds and then be safe. And the danger is that we spend so much time focusing on the weeds that it is not long before we are not producing much wheat. We have filled the jails and are not still entirely safe. We have a war with terrorism and are not entirely safe. Better to focus on being the wheat which means creating the conditions for peace and justice in this world. It is the fruitfulness of acting in peace and creating the conditions of justice that lowers hostility and increase the good over the power of evil.

Published: 7/24/2008 2:23 PM

Notes on High Gas and Food Prices

Allen Mothershed — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 19:22:53 GMT

Body:
There is lots of talk these days and concern about the high gas prices and food prices. Filling my small gas tank up on my compact car feels more like feeling up an actual tank. We've never seen the speed of those numbers on the pump fly so fast. All this raises our anxiety for our families and about the future. There is only so much money for most of us and we wonder how we can make ends meet. I appreciated some comments by Rev. Katherine Mulhern at Edwards United Church of Christ in Davenport in her newsletter devotional thoughts for July, 2008. Katherine talks about how people during the Great Depression learned to cheerfully "make do" in tough times. "They reused everything (paper bags, glass jars, bacon fat and even egg shells). They made their own - most of their clothing and even marshmallows from scratch!...No one thought it was unusual, because everyone was doing it together." We have come to expect a very different world and life style. We have been through a very unusual time of extending income growth and prosperity (by some standards we still have a rather high and expanding life-style). The truth is we have more "stuff" than we actually need and probably even want. What will probably happen for most of us is that we will simple adjust to the changes in prices by shifting how we spend our money. Dare I use the word: sacrifice? Not a very popular word. Some will remembered when President Jimmy Carter used it during the first gas crisis, he did not win friends but lost support from many. Sacrifice is a relative term. It is not much of a sacrifice if all you have to do is put off buying some electronic gadget so you can pay your gas bills. But for someone on much less income, it is a real sacrifice if the choice is between a meal and filling up the gas tank. Perhaps the better word is "change." I have found that change is an opportunity for the good even when it is unwanted or not sought out. We have a chance to think about what really is important in our lives - hopefully that includes learning to depend upon one another in community. Share lawn equipment with others who live on your block rather than everyone buying their own. Live close to work and have more time with family. Buy food that is local and at our farmers markets and get to know the people who work hard to feed us. Consider the impact of your daily decisions and your big decisions (such as buying a car) on the larger community and the environment. What material things do I really value and have need of and what can I discover the joy of letting go of? Perhaps a great respect for family, community, God's gift of the creation will come from all of this. And if so, we will be living closer to our faith and the heart of our values.

Published: 7/24/2008 2:20 PM